


The Simple Life

by WolfenM



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Philosophy, Post-Finale, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 04:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfenM/pseuds/WolfenM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Answers the question "What becomes of Gaius Baltar, Caprica Six, the Agathon family, and Lee Adama, after the colonies settle on Earth?" One night, seven years after landing, they get together and reminisce about an event that occurred a few months after <i>Galactica</i> reached Earth....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seven Years Later ....

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2010 at deviantART.
> 
> Warnings: Animal attacks and related injuries (moderately graphic), treatment of injuries. Also, HIGHLY INTROSPECTIVE AND PHILOSOPHICAL, especially the first half of the first chapter and most of the third. (Some people hate that stuff, so I give warning! XD)  
> Spoilers: The entire series, as this is a post-"Daybreak, Part 2" (series finale) tag.  
> Notes: I really enjoyed the finale of the series, and feel it ended just fine, but fic-wise, I wanted to take things a little further as far as the characters' personal stories went. Baltar is my fave character, and redemption is one of my fave story themes, especially when enemies become friends (and extra-especially when that involves hurt/comfort). I enjoy philosophical discourse on the nature of God/good & evil/morality/how things are never really one-sided, too. Basically this fic is about how Baltar comes to see himself when all is said and done, as well as how _others_ come to see him  and how they come to see themselves _through_ interaction with him. Also, I was always annoyed by the lack of meaningful interaction with the Centurions on the show, so in my version of the future, some Centurions chose to stay behind. Also, I'm a happy-endings kind of gal, big time, so it's sappy. XD (Although it's not a happy ending for the lion in the story. And I'm a Leo! Shame on me!) Hey, this is fanfic  I'm not getting paid to do it, so of course it's self-indulgent. But I hope people will find it entertaining anyway. ;) And finally, many thanks to my friend Dennis for inadvertently giving me an idea of something to do with Kara.  
>  Soundtrack: (This is what I listened to while writing, to put me in the mood, not songs for specific scenes.) Jamie Cullum's "The Simple Life"; Carolina Liar's "Coming to Terms", "Show Me What I'm Looking For", "Simple Life", "Something to Die For", "Beautiful World", "California Bound", and "Done Stealin'"; and Take That's "Rule the World"  
> Disclaimer: Baltar, Caprica, Lee, Helo, Sharon, Hera, Cottle, Tigh, Ellen, Adama, Jeanne, Derrick, Paula, Gaeta, Galen, Roslin, D'Anna, the concept of the Centurions, skinjobs, Cylons in general, and the _Galactica_ all belong to Ronald D Moore  & David Eick/SyFy/SkyOne/Universal Television.

" _A cottage small is all I'm after,_  
Not one that's spacious and wide  
A house that rings with joy and laughter,  
With the ones that you love inside ...."  
~Jamie Cullum, "The Simple Life"  
  
Gaius Baltar set down his garden hoe and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He smiled gratefully as his companion handed him a flask — just water, but at the moment, it tasted better than any wine or scotch he could remember. Like with many other things he had once abhorred in his life — faith, monogamy, anonymity, just to name those of the widest scope — Gaius had, over the last seven years, learned to appreciate hard labour and the purity of the simple, natural world.  
  
Which was _not_ to say that he didn't still enjoy a drink that was a little more complicated than water now and then. Nor was it to say that, since his heart and body were true to Caprica, his eyes were somehow blind to any fine curve that didn't belong to her.  
  
And while he did indeed believe in God these days, it was mostly, as he had once told Cavil, as an unstoppable force of nature, not something to be looked to with the expectation that it would solve your every problem, nor something to be blamed if things went wrong. It was, he felt, something to be _danced_ with, a partner in a celestial tango. God led, and it was up to you to go with the flow or else stumble and fall. Perhaps God could have saved Derrick on his — her? its? — own, but he didn't; it had taken Gaius begging and offering himself in the child's stead, taking up his own role in the dance, for God to act.  
  
Or, in a broader scope, God was the choreographer, the playwright; everyone had a part to play, but some had bigger roles than others. God could plan all he wanted, but it was the dancers, the actors, who literally put that plan into motion. It was up to the players to dance, to speak their roles, or to stand still and silent; the whole performance hinged on their decisions as much as God's, if not more. Would they dance with others, or dance alone? Would they pick up the fallen, or dance around them? Would they keep to the program or break formation, speak the lines or improvise? Once the curtain was drawn, it was pretty much out of out of God's hands; the celestial Director could only do so much, working from backstage. And if it was true that all had happened before, that this same show was performed over and over, how much changed? Were there new "stars" every time, or did some of them play the same parts again and again? Was the show a success, or was God still fine-tuning it? In any case, as far as Gaius was concerned, _this_ performance, this particular act, this _scene_ was what mattered, and he kept his focus on it, not dwelling on the missteps he'd made or worrying about scenes yet to come. He would put his faith in his costars and the Director, do his best to fulfill his own role, and trust that everything would lead to a happy ending. Because, really, what else was there to do?  
  
Gaius and his wife, Caprica, might once have been chosen by God for a purpose, but whether or not to follow through with that purpose, and precisely how, had, he believed, been up to them. In fact, Gaius suspected that God had actually chosen him in the first place _because_ Gaius had been _corrupt_ , not a saint. That was, he was corrupt enough to help bring about the "end" of humanity, however unintentionally — yet was still _loving_ enough to want to make amends for that act and help humanity start over. Destruction begat creation; the two supposed opposites went hand-in-hand, enabling each other. Not that that excused what ill Gaius had done in his life, exactly, but it helped him to remember that even one's bad moments could serve a greater purpose.  
  
And despite all their flaws, Gaius and Caprica had also been the first to look past the differences between Cylon and human, the first, even before Helo and Sharon, to see the opposing side as being a gathering of _people_ and get beyond their own prejudice enough to work with, even _care_ for, the so-called enemy. True, their acceptance of each other may have begun for the poorest of reasons — they'd used each other. And it didn't change the fact that Gaius had basically handed his people over to those intent on murdering them, but at least the first time was an accident, and the second time he'd been hoping they might work towards peace. That willingness to cooperate and not simply see anyone as a two-dimensional _had_ paved the way for human-Cylon peace — _eventually_. If the road to Hell was paved with good intentions, then perhaps the road to Heaven was, by necessity, paved with bad ones?  
  
Of course, that fact didn't make the things he'd done any less reprehensible. They might have been what he was "fated" to do, but that didn't make the actions any less _wrong_. In fact, once upon a time, he'd been drowning in guilt, _knowing_ what he'd done was wrong, believing he was worthless. Then he'd convinced himself that he'd only done what God wanted, so that meant he _hadn't_ done anything wrong and had nothing to be held accountable for. He'd been floating comfortably on that excuse, no longer weighed down by his emotional burden, but he wasn't really a better person for it. Now he'd found the middle ground, feet solidly on the pool's bottom but head above water: You had to be truly sorry for the wrong you'd done, and never forget it, but at the same time, you also had to forgive yourself enough to _believe_ in yourself, to believe you _could_ do better, in order to be able to move on and _do better_.  
  
In any case, now that God was, for the most part, done with guiding them through hoops and past crossroads, Gaius and his wife now enjoyed a relationship with It that was more along the lines of (mostly) quiet companionship, the epilogue to their story. Gaius and Caprica simply accepted whatever each day brought — there was no bowing and scraping to a higher power in hopes of getting what they wanted, nor fist-shaking and cursing when things didn't go their way  — just gratitude for each hard-earned moment together, good and bad.  
  
Unfortunately, even after all this time, the Cult of Gaius still couldn't quite understand what their reluctant leader himself had come to realize. They still clung to the concept of prostration, to the security blanket sort of comfort that came with seeking salvation through an outside power rather than an inner one. And they clung to Gaius himself. Those followers (and they _were_ followers, whether he liked it or not) had multiplied exponentially.  
  
Yes, Gaius appreciated anonymity now — he just didn't _have_ it.  
  
Not that he didn't also appreciate _fame_ — God knew he had an ego the size of Caprica. (The planet, not his wife. _Either_ planet, old or new, really.) But feeding that ego had cost him dearly, time and time again. Every time he'd accepted fame, be it as a scientist, a president, or a cult leader, he'd suddenly found himself responsible for the lives of countless others.  
  
Which might have been all right, _if_ he had been up to the job, but he _wasn't_ , not most of the time — he'd always been too much of a coward, even if the reasons for his fears had altered some over the years. And, admittedly, he'd gotten a little better with his fears in general, but still, he tried (unsuccessfully, alas) to avoid finding himself in a position of that kind of responsibility again, afraid that he would abuse the power and screw things up like he had on New Caprica. God had let it happen — no, had _wanted_ it to happen once before, because doing so had served Its purpose; why not again? But Gaius didn't want to be an instrument of destruction, no matter how cleansing for the universe, ever again. He hoped God had let him change roles, from villain to hero, but he wasn't entirely _sure_ he had. And so there was this underlying fear every time he had to go to the Quorum that others might suffer, even die, because of his decisions.  
  
It was the only fear he was proud of having — and he lived with it every day, no matter what the angels had said about his and Caprica's lives being less eventful. If people could change their minds, why not God? Who knew what "eventful" was, anyway?  
  
Ruffling golden curls and placing a sound kiss on top of his companion's head as he returned the flask, Gaius knew that, at least in some cases, he wouldn't want it any other way.  
  
"Gaius! Adam! Dinner!"  
  
"Be there after we wash up, dear," Gaius called back to his wife, a loving smile in his voice as well as on his lips.  
  
He turned the smile at his son, beside him. "You first," he said, giving the boy a gentle nudge towards their solar-powered electric water pump. They had indoor plumbing, the settlement's preliminary planning council having decided that water management wasn't so very technological as to lead to the destruction of mankind again. It helped that Cottle insisted that it was important for the health of the community. But at the Baltar homestead, it didn't matter much that they had indoor plumbing; Caprica would have a fit if they tracked dirt into the house on their way to the sink! So they used the pump outside to rinse the worst off after a day in the field. Gaius watched as the six-year-old ran to the well, the lad sure-footed despite his work-boots being a bit too big for him. Adam would grow into them soon enough — _too_ soon, Gaius felt, but then he supposed every parent did. He watched proudly, from a distance, as the boy quite capably operated the turnkey on the pump's tap. Adam liked to do things for himself, and while Gaius did try to impress upon the boy that it was okay to ask for help now and then, he also felt the boy's independent, self-reliant spirit would serve him well — and hopefully make him a better man than Gaius ever was.  
  
Gaius then noted the sound of a machine still going behind him; he was so used to the sound, despite the fact that they had no other machinery, that it had taken him a moment to realise that the sound should have stopped by then. "Hey!" he said with a laugh, patting the "rose-and-vine"-decorated shoulder-plate of a Cylon Centurion. "You, too, Galatea! Time to call it quits."  
  
The Centurion pointed to the patch of ground that had yet to be tilled.  
  
Gaius shook his head, grinning ruefully. "Such a workaholic. Well, it's up to you in the end, but we _are_ several days ahead of schedule already, thanks to you, and we'd miss you at the table ...." Never mind that she couldn't eat or speak; a friend was a friend, and the presence of one was always welcome — especially when he'd known so few _true_ friends most of his life.  
  
Galatea looked at the ground a moment, then shrugged, nodding, and began walking towards the well.  
  
When Gaius and Caprica had first started tilling their chosen plot of land all those years ago, they had worked alone for the first week, even going so far as to pull a makeshift plow together. And really, Gaius wouldn't have traded the days he'd worked closely with Caprica, like a pair of oxen in a yoke, for anything. He'd enjoyed just being near her, for one thing — always had and always would. For another, that had been the first time in his life that he'd really understood the pride his father had evinced over being a farmer; seeing the earth turned and knowing that soon it would be a field of food for their people filled him with awe, humbled him, even now, seven years later. How had he not seen the beauty in that when he was a boy — or as an adult, for that matter?  
  
Still, the work _was_ hard; soon they'd had blisters and were so sore they'd eventually had to stop for an entire day! Yes, even Caprica, with her Cylon stamina, had eventually felt the strain and needed to rest. But before she reached that point, Gaius had refused to let her work alone if he could help it, pushing himself to the limit until he would collapse each night, and Caprica would work while he slept. They'd worked themselves into a stupor, knowing that they would need grains soon enough, the fleet's supply slowly dwindling, and knowing that all across the settlement people were struggling just as hard.  
  
And then Galatea had shown up one day. She just went to work beside them, without any prompting, doing at least twice the work of both of them combined, and without tiring.  
  
Gaius hadn't recognised her, of course, but a short, inaudible conversation between her and Caprica had revealed that the then-nameless Centurion had actually met Gaius on the rebel baseship, just before a blast had nearly killed him. Gaius had assumed that Galatea had been destroyed in that blast, but just as Roslin had fixed him up, so too, Galatea's fellow Centurions had fixed Galatea.  
  
The Centurion, through Caprica, had said that remembered how Gaius had spoken to her (well, okay, _it_ , but it was hard not to think of her as female with that name, and she didn't mind), how he had encouraged her to believe that the Centurions were just as important to God as their flesh-and-blood counterparts, and that the "skinjobs" had been mistreating them. While most humans at the time had hated even the _human_ -looking Cylons, there were some who did accept the skinjobs — yet even those more open-minded humans had still seen the metal Centurions as only contemptible "toasters". And Gaius had been right: some of the skinjobs themselves, particularly Cavil, had indeed treated the Centurions as lesser beings, slaves to be used and abused. So a human that had spoken to Galatea as an equal, particularly at a time when it wasn't at all ... _fashionable_ to do so, was, she felt, someone worth knowing better. Of course, Gaius knew he'd been full of his own self-importance, not acting entirely altruistically, when he'd said such things to Galatea, but that fact didn't change the truth of what he'd said. In fact, he himself _had_ believed it — and still did. He also believed that the Centurions had souls.  
  
Caprica Six, too, was something of a hero to the Cylons as a whole, and _every_ Six was considered a friend to the Centurions. All Cylons were familiar the part Gaius and Caprica had played together, as the protectors of Hera, towards the salvation of both races. Galatea in particular, thanks to her own experience, felt her best chance of knowing God and what role she could play in the future was to know the pair of them, the two who spoke to angels. And if _they_ were staying on this new Earth, why should _she_ leave it? What more was there to seek in the corporeal heavens than was already there on the new Earth? That was what she had said to Caprica that first day in the field.  
  
When the bulk of the Centurions had jumped away in the rebel baseship, a few handfuls had stayed, feeling, like Galatea, that all they wanted was there on Earth, and also being reluctant to leave the skinjobs — their kin — behind. Though machines, not flesh and blood, they proved to care about their "family" as easily as their almost-human cousins.  
  
But a good many of the humans had balked at allowing the Centurions to remain in their new veritably technology-less society. In the end, it was Saul and Ellen Tigh who reminded the preliminary council (before the new Quorum was chosen) that the Centurions had free will, and therefore as much right to choose their home and destiny as any skinjob. That was why they had given the other Centurions the baseship in the first place, after all, rather than sending it into the sun with Anders. But while the issue of whether or not the Centurions could stay on Earth was settled that first day, it took a week more of the Tighs championing them before the council finally agreed that they should be free to roam where they pleased, rather than being made to stay in designated areas with skinjob keepers.  
  
That was when Galatea had finally sought Gaius and Caprica out. Another Centurion stayed with the Tighs, while a third went to live with Sharon and Helo and Hera, and a fourth went with Tyrol (though he balked at the idea, only agreeing to appease Ellen). Like Tyrol, Apollo had refused such company at first, but after Gaius pointed out how much of a comfort it would be to the people if they at least knew he was all right during his travels, and that they could reach him if the need arose, he relented as well. (It probably helped that the one who wanted the job had, it turned out, apparently gotten Lee's back during that final battle on the enemy baseship.) Two Centurions stayed with Doc Cottle, who used them as an ambulance service of sorts. Eventually, after Lee found his father again, they (Lee, Gaius, Cottle, the Agathons, and the Tighs) all badgered Bill Adama into accepting a Centurion sentry of his own. And each member of the Quorum (once they was finally chosen, months later) found themselves with one as well. The rest of the Centurions, another few dozen, made their homes with the various Twos, Sixes, and Eights.  
  
The Centurions were never forced to serve, never treated as property, but they were eager to aid, to prove their value and willingness to be part of the community. Galatea once said that there was a world of difference between being _forced_ to serve and _choosing_ to — and that God has put them all there, human and Cylon alike, with the expectation that they serve each other. With Centurion aid, farms and towns were quickly raised. And thanks to their wireless connection, the colonies were able to keep in contact with Lee and Bill Adama; they hadn't completely lost their heroes, their true leaders.  
  
Of course, some would argue that Gaius and Caprica were both heroes and leaders as well, never mind what had happened on New Caprica. Gaius sighed heavily as he spotted one such individual coming up the hill, her young teen son by her side.  
  
"Gaius!" Jeanne called as she spotted him in turn, waving.  
  
He waved back only half-heartedly, but Jeanne, along with every other member of his cult (as Helo still called it) never seemed to notice his reticence. Her son, Derrick, however, _did_ notice, and offered Gaius a smirk of sympathy.  
  
"Derrick," Gaius nodded, an answering smirk tugging at his lips.  
  
"Shawna had her baby!" Jeanne cheerfully revealed. "She was hoping—"  
  
"—that I would come bless it," Gaius finished, having heard the request a hundred times before. "Jeanne, I don't know how many times I can tell you all that God is pretty much _done_ with me — I have no special powers or anything. My blessings mean no more—"  
  
"—than anyone else's, I know," Jeanne replied with a twinkle in her eye. "Well, it certainly won't hurt you to try, Gaius," she chided gently. "Even if you don't believe in your own Grace, we have faith, and that's enough. And if something should happen to the child despite your blessing, we won't blame you."  
  
But if he _didn't_ bless the child and something happened to it, they definitely _would_ blame him, he reckoned. In any case, they'd had this conversation a million times already, and it pretty much ended the same way every time.  
  
"All right," he agreed, sighing. "Would you like to stay for dinner?" he added politely.  
  
He would have thought that the last person Caprica would want at their table would be a member of his former "harem", as she called it, but she had chastised him for not being hospitable the first time one of them came by. So he'd extended a dinner invitation to every visitor — which usually turned out to be Jeanne — ever since. He would swear he could hear Caprica's teeth grinding through her brittle smile each time, but she was as gracious a hostess as anyone could be, and never even complained later — although she would at least _agree_ with his own grumblings when their company was gone.  
  
And as the years went by, there was another reason to make Jeanne welcome at their table: Derrick. He was a good kid, and Adam looked up to the lad like a big brother. Case in point, Adam was almost to the door but came hurrying back when he'd heard Jeanne call out, and had reached them just as Gaius was inviting them to dinner.  
  
"Pleeease stay, Auntie Jeannie!" the child begged.  
  
Jeanne agreed with a smile, smoothing the boy's hair. Gaius softened towards her a little; she really was a good person, the annoying blind devotion to him aside. He wondered if God ever got similarly annoyed with It's most devout followers ....  
  
After letting Jeanne and Derrick wash the dust of their journey off, he and Galatea took their turns, and they all headed towards the house together. Caprica had come back to the door, probably to find out what the holdup was. He wondered if Derrick noticed the wince Caprica gave when she laid eyes on the boy's mother. Jeanne herself most certainly hadn't.  
  
The dark-haired baby in Caprica's arms gave a cheerful gurgle, apparently happier to see their guest than either of her parents were. Or maybe she was just ignoring Jeanne in favour of Derrick. As he took his daughter in his arms, Gaius suddenly realised that someday he was going to have to worry about the presence of boys around her.  
  
Epiphanies like that were killer on the appetite.  
  
Fortunately, the smell of whatever had been roasted for dinner revived it. Gaius followed the scent into the kitchen and dining area — and found more surprise guests. Helo, Sharon, Hera, and their own camouflage-painted Centurion, Pandora, were there, as well as Hera's younger brother, Sam. It wasn't actually a shock to find them there, as they'd likely brought the animal Caprica had roasted, but it was odd that they hadn't stopped in the field to say hello when they'd arrived. Or rather, it would have been, if not for the _other_ guests he found in his house, who had likely accompanied them. Lee Adama and his starscape-painted Centurion companion, Starbuck, were the _true_ surprise; their neighbors had probably snuck the pair in through the back door, surprising Caprica first.  
  
Gaius smiled warmly and, babe still in one arm, gave a one-armed embrace with the other, first to Lee and then to the Centurion.  
  
Lee and Gaius had had their differences in the past, to be sure, but as Lee had told the fleet on the day of their arrival, life on this new Earth was meant to be a clean slate, and so they'd let bygones be bygones. And, well, Lee's having saved Gaius from being executed had to count for something, even if Lee hadn't at all liked Gaius at the time. It also helped that Lee had come to look at Gaius with new eyes after the role Gaius had played in the final battle.  
  
Just as Gaius had talked Lee into letting a Centurion accompany him, so Lee had talked Gaius into being the representative for "his" people in the new Quorum. Gaius had actually hoped it would be Paula, but the other Quorum members wouldn't hear of it. Gaius and Lee had laughed over the irony; just before the battle, Gaius had been begging Lee to allow his people to have representation in the government, even saying that it didn't even have to be him, but Lee had been hung up on just how much he didn't trust Gaius that he had refused!  
  
The miracle of Kara Thrace, risen from the dead to guide them home, had helped to sway people about Gaius, particularly as Kara's miracle had physical evidence to back it up, showing that miracles did, in fact, happen. With that knowledge, people gave new credence to the story that the Cult of Gaius had told of how he had saved Derrick's life by begging God to take his own; the coincidence of timing between the assassination attempt and the boy's recovery could not be so easily dismissed. Still, though, Lee was not convinced by that himself.  
  
Then Lee had seen Gaius join the effort to rescue Hera. And later, Lee and the people had heard from the elder Adama how Gaius (and Caprica) had found and protected the girl, and how eloquently Gaius had pleaded with Cavil for a truce. Coupling that with the other passionate speeches that they had all heard Gaius give in the past, many opinions regarding ex-president Baltar had done a veritable one-eighty, from abhorrence to acceptance. (There were exceptions, of course, but that was yet another way Galatea had proved to be valuable: protection.) The man who had saved Hera and shown such growth as a human being could now, Lee had insisted, give the people the hope and guidance they needed — and the very fact that Gaius didn't _want_ the job only convinced Lee more that Gaius was the best candidate! So with his followers settling to the east of his homestead, Gaius became their reluctant Quorum representative. (Of course, if Jeanne had her way, Gaius would be a full-time _priest_ , as well.)  
  
As time went on, Gaius and Lee had gotten to know each other, working side by side both in the fields and in the Quorum to build a new home for their people. Their newly-found mutual respect had quickly blossomed into friendship, much as it had between Gaius and Caprica and their neighbors, the Agathons.  
  
Gaius saw Lee notice Jeanne; Lee then gave Gaius a quick grin, having often heard Gaius gripe about the demands of his cult in general and this woman in particular. Gaius gave him a rueful smile in return.  
  
Then Lee's eyes fell on the baby, and the man's smile grew wistful. Gaius felt a pang of sorrow for his friend, hoping that the child's name, Kara Roslin, didn't serve as a painful reminder of what Lee — or Bill — had lost. It just had felt right at the time ....  
  
"Can I hold her?" Lee asked.  
  
"Of course," Gaius replied, readily handing his precious child over. There weren't many people that he felt comfortable letting hold her, but this man had earned the right more than most. "Do you remember this guy? He's an explorer, so we don't get to see him much, which means its all the more special when we do! His name is Lee, and he's your Godfather," he explained to her.  
  
Lee looked shocked, then touched, to hear the role he was to play in the little girl's life, much as he had when he'd learned the name of Gaius and Caprica's son, who was named for both of the Adamas, heroes of the fleet.  
  
"Hello, Kara," Lee greeted the 8-month-old softly, bouncing her gently. Gaius pretended not to notice the glint of tears in his friend's eyes. "Oh, I'm going to spoil you rotten," Lee promised, kissing her brow.  
  
Looking at the scar that ran down the side of Lee's face, a souvenir from one of the man's "adventures", Gaius hoped that Lee's promise meant that the man would be home more often. He glanced at Caprica, Helo, and Sharon; their expressions suggested that they were all thinking the exact same thing — and Gaius suspected that the Centurion trio were as well.  
  
Jeanne, though, not really being a member of their little "family" — well, okay, being more like a distant cousin — apparently was not having such thoughts. (Sometimes Gaius wondered if she had any thoughts at _all_ , really.) "So, what sorts of adventures did you have this time?" she asked eagerly as they settled down to eat outside.  
  
And so they spent the next few hours listening to those tales, captivated; even little Kara looked like she was enthralled. Gaius glanced at his son, worried. While he wanted his son to be whatever the boy wanted to be when he grew up, at the same time he hoped that the boy — or Kara, for that matter — wouldn't choose to follow in "Uncle" Lee's footsteps, be it literally or figuratively. Then again, living at the homestead had its fair share of dangers, he supposed.  
  
He winced in sudden pain; the promise of rain was in the wind, and the change in barometric pressure made bones that had once been broken ache in memory of their former splintered state. Granted, he had, arguably, been on an adventure when they'd gotten that way, but he'd been only about ten miles from the homestead when it had happened ....  
  
"You all right?" Helo asked lowly while Lee continued regaling the children with a story. Helo's eyes held the same apology they always did whenever he witnessed Gaius massaging his collarbone.  
  
Gaius nodded reassuringly, but Helo was already addressing his daughter at that point. "That reminds me — Hera, go get the balm for Uncle Gaius."  
  
Giving her "Uncle" a guilty look, Hera hurried off to the porch, where a bag sat.  
  
"You brought more?" Gaius asked in relief.  
  
Helo nodded. "We came across the nomads late this morning, thank the Gods — I ran out last week."  
  
"Well, _you_ get _my_ thanks for getting me some, too — I finished my own supply off a month ago," Gaius told him, smiling as he accepted a small container from Hera. It contained a balm made from plants that grew much farther north. Gaius supposed he could get Lee to bring him some, and figure out the balm's other ingredients and the process used to make it, but it was easier just to trade for it — provided one could find the nomads and they had a batch ready.  
  
"I know, Caprica told me the other day — you should have said something sooner!" Helo chided him with a pained but affectionate expression.  
  
"I forgot — I hadn't really needed it over the summer, the weather's been so pleasant," Gaius explained, brushing the concern aside as he tousled Hera's dark locks affectionately.  
  
She smiled back at him, but the guilt still clouded her eyes, just as it did Helo's — and Sharon's, he knew, having spotted the woman giving Caprica the same pensive, apologetic look, one that really belonged more on a kicked puppy than their dearest friends.  
  
He sighed internally at the Agathons. Caprica took the jar from him, then drew his shirt open and down his arms a ways. He let out a veritable purr of gratitude as she began to massage the wondrous substance into his aching shoulders.  
  
But really, even without the balm, some occasional aches and pains were a small price to pay: the incident that had caused them had ended happily, with solid relations formed between their people and the nearby natives, so Gaius counted the whole experience as worthwhile. Like with how some of the mistakes Gaius had made in his life had led to positive ends, so too had the fateful mistakes Hera and her parents had once made. He told her that she had been too little to understand she danger she'd wandered into at the time, and therefore wasn't at fault, told her that all that had occurred had doubtless been God's plan. He also tried to assure her parents that such things happen sometimes — that they, having been asleep when she'd wandered off, weren't to blame — but here they were, six years later, and the events of that day still haunted them. Caprica, too, felt needless guilt over her own role. All that in turn made Gaius feel bad that the ones he cared for should feel that way over something that had happened to _him_.  
  
Gaius remembered a few stories where one person would save someone's life and end up with the saved person waiting on them, hand and foot, to the point where the savior wanted to _throttle_ the person they'd saved. Inevitably, the savior pretended to be in trouble so that the person they'd saved needed to save them in turn, making them even. Gaius was sometimes tempted to try that himself, but he didn't think that his friends or wife would ever stop feeling guilty, even if they'd saved his life thrice over!  
  
Before long, the balm and Caprica's soothing fingers made him forget all about his concern for (and frustration with) her and the Agathons — as well as the pain in his shoulders, the fact that they had company (one of them not terribly wanted), and practically even his own _name_. He got to enjoy the sensation for all of a minute.  
  
Then Adam had to go and ask how his father had gotten the scars on his shoulder.  
  
It wasn't that the boy hadn't seen them before, but Gaius supposed the child hadn't been old enough to understand until now that they'd been caused by something rather than being just a natural part of his father. Listening to Lee's stories of how the man had acquired his _own_ scars just now had probably helped Adam finally make the mental leap from just knowing that his father was scarred to wondering if Gaius had been through a harrowing, possibly heroic ordeal. Thing was, most people would probably say the that boy would be _right_ to assume the scars involved heroism, even if Gaius couldn't help but think, however much he was tempted to let his ego bask in the glory, _anyone_ with even half a heart would have done what he had. (Then again, part of him feared that they were simply saying that what he'd done was heroic for someone like _him_ ....)  
  
Gaius eyed the Agathons out of his peripheral, trying to think of how to reply. He could feel the sudden tension in his wife's fingers; he looked her way and found her just as at a loss. He supposed he would have to tell his son sooner or later, but perhaps he was still to young yet? They were having such a nice night, even with Jeanne there; he'd hate to make things uncomfortable for his friends, especially little Hera. How would Adam knowing that his father had nearly died saving her affect the children's friendship? Then again, Adam knowing (thanks to Jeanne's big mouth) that Gaius had begged God to take his life in exchange for Derrick's hadn't affected Adam's friendship with Derrick. But that could just be because Adam was too young to understand — maybe everything would fall apart when he _was_ finally old enough ....  
  
Hera herself took the decision out of his hands.  
  
"Your dad got hurt saving my life," she told Adam softly. Though she was always quiet, she had no trouble speaking when it mattered. Words flowed from her lips now as she began the tale, Gaius and the others adding to the current now and then. Memories flooded back to Gaius with the stream of sound ....


	2. Seven Years Past ....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it's not obvious from the get-go, this chapter takes place seven years before the first chapter, several months after they'd landed on Earth.

**Baltar**  
  
The Agathons had quickly come to an arrangement with Gaius and Caprica not long after landing, just before the Centurions had come to stay with them. The Agathons shared the results of their hunts with Gaius and Caprica and helped with the planting now and then, with the understanding that Gaius and Caprica would share their milk and eggs (from free-range animals, the notion of penning them sounding too much like the ill treatment of the Raiders and Centurions — or even the lower-class humans in the fleet — for Gaius and Caprica's liking) with the Agathons, and then, later, their harvest. It wasn't something either party had really even talked about; the Agathons had just shown up a day or two after each party had settled into their respective territories. Antelope in hand, Helo made the casual comment that someone had to make sure the famers were fed while they made ready to feed the hunters.  
  
And when the planting was done, and the Baltars (for Caprica had married Gaius by then) had started working on making a more permanent home than their tent, they had invited the Agathons to stay under their roof at night if they would help them build for a little while during the day when they weren't hunting. When their house was finished, the Baltars then began helping the Agathons build their own home. Still, the Agathons continued to spend their nights at the Baltar homestead while their own home was yet unfinished, each party happy to keep the arrangement going. Helo and Sharon, grateful for how Gaius and Caprica had been so protective of Hera during the final battle, were friendly and helpful. Gaius and Caprica, still feeling inexplicably protective of the little girl, were quite welcoming, glad to have her around where they could keep an eye on her.  
  
As the weeks went on, though, Gaius found Caprica to be more and more ... _prickly_. He couldn't tell if it was something he had done or if she was just tired of their houseguests, as she was cranky with _everyone_. And then one day, when Galatea, Pandora, and the Agathons were off working at the Agathon homestead, Gaius came home one evening from Quoram meeting to find Caprica home already; she'd gotten sick that morning after he'd left, so had stayed home rather than work at the Agathons' that day. The heat was worse than usual that evening — and so was Caprica's temper. Gaius had had an especially trying afternoon with the Quoram, and when his attempts to show concern for Caprica's illness was met with more crankiness, he found his own fuse was short. What should have been a rare and enjoyable bit of alone-time degenerated into screaming match, capped with Gaius storming out, needing to clear his head.  
  
He at least had the presence of mind to grab his staff, pack, and his knife before starting out on a walk. And before actually leaving their property, he decided to check on their animals. Most of them had actually settled in for the evening — only a few were missing, most notably Bessie the milk cow. Gaius went back outside and decided to see if he could find her, to make sure she was all right. Almost immediately, he discovered a few bloody feathers, remnants of a chicken — and the massive prints of a lion! Suddenly his wish to find the free-range beast became a lot more urgent. Hunting for a while, Gaius finally found a trail of large cloven prints; he followed it until, looking at the sky, it was past the point that he would be able to make it home before dark, even if he turned around right then. That might not have bothered him — he could probably find his way by moonlight well enough if he was in more familiar surroundings by the time night fell — but remembering the fight, he was hurt and confused, reluctant to go home and face Caprica again. So he decided to follow the hoofprints until dark, then spend the night in the woods and hopefully find Bessie the next day, before the lion did — and before the lion found _him_.  
  
The next morning, he soon discovered that the cow in question had apparently circled back towards home — but also found the hoofprints of a sizable herd of something else. Curious, and still not eager to face Caprica again, he followed the trail for several miles. He was walking up an incline when he heard a blood-chilling scream.  
  
Hurrying over the rise, he found a young, half-starved male lion circling the base of a tree. At its feet lay a spear, the shaft broken in two. Following the lion's gaze, Gaius saw, huddled in the branches of the tree, the spear's probable owner: a roughly eleven-year-old child covered in mud and white paint and wearing nothing more than a leather breechclout.  
  
Beside the boy was Hera.  
  
" _Uncle Gaius!_ " she screamed through sobs.  
  
Upon arriving at the scene, Gaius had found himself rooted to the spot, frozen with fear and uncertainty. Another cry from Hera shot through him like adrenaline, jolting him into action. He ran forward, yelling in challenge, and whacked the lion's hindquarters with his staff. The lion turned towards him in irritation and swiped at him with a paw, growling in warning.  
  
" _Run, Hera! Go home!_ " Gaius ordered, swinging at the lion's head this time.  
  
The lion batted the staff away like it was a twig, but Gaius managed to keep his grip, even though the impact hurt his hands. He swung again; another rebuttal from the cat, who took a few menacing steps forward, snarling warningly. But then it heard the children slipping out of the tree, and began to turn back to them. Gaius yelled again and whacked it on the head this time, recapturing its attention. Furious now, the cat leapt at him, bowling him over before he could bring his staff down again for another blow.  
  
As he hit the ground, Gaius felt both of his collarbones snap under the weight of the lion's forepaws. A moment later, he felt claws dig into his thighs, then rip across his flesh as the lion's hind paws slipped off of him. He screamed, and white spots dotted his vision. Through the disorientation that came with the pain, he had some vague sensation that the lion had shifted its weight, moving its forepaws to either side of him; despite the danger he was in, for a moment all he could think of was what a relief it was to have the thing off of him. Through the fading spots before his eyes, he saw the lion open its massive jaws. Miraculously, Gaius managed to jerk his head and neck away, so the lion's descending teeth sank into his left shoulder instead. The pain from the movement of his broken clavicles almost blocked out the pain of the bite.  
  
Almost.  
  
He tried pushing the beast off of him, but it was like trying to move a half-tonne boulder with a rubber hose. Gaius felt the teeth move within his flesh as the lion shook his head a little. Dizzy with pain and fear, Gaius expected to feel the teeth tear into his jugular at any moment. He resigned himself to his fate; it was overdue, wasn't it? He'd offered up his life to God for Derrick's not long ago, offered his throat, his blood, but God hadn't been done with him yet. Now that it was finally time, God had kindly thrown Hera and the native boy into the bargain. His only regret about the debt being called was that his last words to Caprica had been in anger — he wasn't even sure when the last time he'd told her that he loved her had been.  
  
Instead of increasing with a new tear in his flesh, though, the pain suddenly ceased altogether — along with the movements of the lion, the wind, the rustle of the leaves, the call of birds, and even the heat of the sun. Time just stopped.  
  
"So you're just going to give up, just like that? Not even a goodbye?"  
  
Gaius looked up and found Caprica kneeling over him. He felt elation, then terrible fear for her safety, then bitter disappointment as he realised it was the _angel_ Six, not his wife; he felt it all in the space of a heartbeat. Or perhaps less — or more — seeing as time had ceased to move.  
  
"What about your _son_ , Gaius? Will you leave him without a father?" the angelic Six demanded.  
  
If time hadn't already seemed to have stopped, it certainly would have then.  
  
"S-son?" he asked weakly, even as he suddenly knew, without a doubt, that Six was right. That was why Caprica had been so cranky of late, and had been sick the day before! _Morning sickness!_ He was so overwhelmed by the realisation that he actually laughed, forgetting about his current predicament for a moment.  
  
Six leaned close to him. "Tell me, Gaius, is that a knife in your thigh holster, or are you just glad to see me?"  
  
And then she was gone, and time resumed — along with the pain.  
  
Baltar fought against it, clinging to consciousness and to Six's words as he reached for his knife. Trembling fingers just barely managed to pull it free, but the surge of triumph solidified his grip. With a roar to match the lion's, he sank the blade hilt-deep into the beast's eye, twisting; blood spattered on him, hotter, it seemed, than the rays from the golden orb in the sky. The lion shuddered, then collapsed on Gaius; he felt a few of his ribs crack under the weight. Letting out one last cry of agony, the white spots of pain were traded for a field of black, as his consciousness retreated to someplace where even angels couldn't reach him.  
  
**Hera**  
  
While her parents worked on their new home, they still kept a careful eye on Hera, insisting that she should never stray more than a hundred feet from them. She chafed at their invisible leash; there was so much to see in this new world, but when they weren't hunting, she couldn't explore! Even at night, her mother, who didn't need sleep, kept watch — at least, _normally_ she did. And then one day her mother had hurt her hand.  
Hera heard her mother complain to her father that the pills Doc Cottle gave for the pain made her sleepy, so she would only take them at night. Hera woke up one night and watched her mother sleep; her mother didn't wake up even _once_ to tell Hera to stay close in all that time. Hera also realized that she herself wasn't very tired. The Centurions weren't around either, spending their nights at the other house, working to finish it. Hera wandered outside, and no one stopped her.  
  
That first night of freedom, she came across a native boy stalking a rabbit under the bright moon. He missed the rabbit; she laughed. He approached her slowly,@ then, suddenly smiling, beckoned for her to follow. She did, and he showed her the best find ever: a pile of rocks with sparkles in them. He handed her one with a hole in it; thinking a moment, she gave him a feather she'd found in trade. He tied it into his hair, and she strung the rock onto the necklace she wore. She thanked him; he just titled his head. She pointed to herself, calling herself Hera; he didn't reply. She did it again; he echoed her name, pointing to himself. Laughing, she kept trying to get him to tell her his name, but couldn't get him to understand. So she called him Orion, after one of her favourite stories. She started pointing to other things, naming them, and he would repeat the name.  
  
She walked with him, finding a voice with him that she seldom used with others. She delighted in teaching him what she knew, in being the one who gave answers, for a change, instead of being the one asking. As dawn approached, she found they were back at the Baltar homestead. Hera waved goodbye to her new friend — who, despite her best efforts to show him it wasn't scary, refused to come very close — and went inside, finding her parents still sound asleep.  
  
After just a couple hours of sleep, Hera woke early again the next night, and found her mother asleep again. She also found Orion waiting for her, in roughly the same place she'd left him. Again, they spent the night roaming together, Hera teaching him language; in turn, the boy taught her about his world with gestures and demonstrations. Again, the boy brought her back home just before dawn. And so they spent their time every night, for a week.  
  
One night, Orion bore Hera on his back and took her much further out than they usually went, to where a herd of zebra were gathered. Unfortunately, she and Orion also discovered a lion circling the animals. It saw them, started jogging towards them. Hera clutched tight to Orion's hair as he ran to a nearby tree. They spent a hundred forevers in its branches, waiting for the lion to leave. They fell asleep there; when they woke up, the sun was out and the lion was gone.  
  
When they climbed down, Hera was still scared, afraid that the lion would come back. Worse, she didn't know where she was. Hera started to cry; Orion made soothing sounds, smiling at her, and she felt better. "Home," he told her, beckoning for her to climb on his shoulders again; did he know the way? She believed he did as he started to jog.  
  
He went far, too — until the lion found them again! Orion ran to the only tree near them, but it was significantly smaller than the last one had been. The lion jumped at them, slashing with its claws, but kept missing them. Then it rammed the tree, shaking it; Hera could hear it crack, could feel it leaning a little. Terrified, she began to cry again, shrieking every time the lion hit the tree.  
  
And then she spotted her Uncle Gaius.  
  
Like a hero from the stories her parents told her at bedtime, Gaius came roaring in with nothing bit a big stick and hit the lion, telling Hera to run. She wanted to obey but couldn't seem to move! The next thing she knew, Orion had grabbed her arm, trying to pull her over his shoulder. Getting the hint, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist. He hurried down the tree; if not for the danger they were in, it might have even been fun, like riding a lemur or a squirrel. The lion turned to snarl at them, but Gaius rapped it on the head, and Orion got away with her.  
  
Hera clung for dear life, eyes squeezed tightly shut, waiting for the lion to chomp her from behind — he never did. Soon she couldn't even hear the lion's snarls anymore, but Orion kept running. Finally, Hera braved a look behind her, expecting to see her uncle following after, but there was only wide open grassland. Still Orion kept running. She urged him onward, to home; her parents could help Gaius!  
  
To Hera, it seemed like Orion was running forever before he finally slowed to a walk, but even then he wouldn't put her down. She pretend he was a Centurion, wondering if he was pretending it too — had he ever even _seen_ one?  
  
It was another eternity before Hera started recognising the surroundings at all, and then only a little. Orion stopped finally, breathing hard. Hera slipped to the grass, her arms aching. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye; the next thing she knew, Orion was screaming and falling to the ground. He scrambled back up as quickly as he'd fallen, grabbing her and limping away; looking back, she spotted a snake slithering behind them. Orion kept going a little ways until reaching a shady spot, then sat against a tree, trembling. She wondered whether he was scared or cold.  
  
Hera tried to urge him onward again, but he shook his head, then pointed in the direction they'd been travelling. "Home!" he told her. He sounded like her father, so as much as she didn't want to go on alone or leave him, she obeyed anyway, stumbling through the brush as fast as her little legs would carry her. If she could reach the homestead, her mommy and daddy could help both her uncle and Orion, she was sure ....  
  
**Sharon**  
  
"What do you think of this for Hera's room?" Sharon asked, holding up a bolt of bright cloth. "Too bright?"  
  
Caprica glanced up from the pile she was perusing in the market and smiled at her friend. "Why don't you try asking _Hera_?"  
  
Sharon cocked her head quizzically. "She's not here with us!" she pointed out.  
  
" _Exactly_ ," Caprica replied, grinning from under half-closed lids.  
  
Sharon felt like she was missing something in this conversation, but when she tried to think of what, it eluded her; it was like Caprica was speaking a foreign language. Instead, she found herself wondering where Caprica had gotten the red dress she was wearing — Sharon couldn't recall ever having seen her in one like that, at least not since landing on Earth. And why was Caprica's smile so ... _creepy_? Something felt _off_ about the woman, unfamiliar. And then the Caprica's words suddenly made sense.  
  
Sharon jerked awake, panting; Helo, in the bed beside her, groggily asked her what was wrong. She glanced around the room, scrambling out of bed as she asked, frantically, " _Where's Hera?_ "  
  
Helo bolted awake then, sheets tangled around his legs as he fell out of bed. Sharon was already out the door by the time he freed himself and hurried after her.  
  
"You look outside; I'll check in here," Sharon told her husband, looking for her missing child as she spoke; she didn't even realise he'd agreed with her directions until she heard the front door open and close. She could hear him shouting their daughter's name even as she called it out herself. After having exhausted most of the indoor options, she was about to join Helo outside, when her eyes fell upon the door to Gaius and Caprica's room. Could Hera have wandered in there?  
  
Sharon knocked on the door, wondering why Caprica hadn't head the commotion and come out. Caprica likely didn't sleep, only watched over Baltar while he slept, much as Sharon usually did with Helo (when she wasn't on pain meds, anyway). Or _did_ Caprica actually sleep at night, even though she didn't need to? Well, even if she did, she ought to still be able to hear and wake up! Sharon knocked harder, then pounded, splintering the door, calling out for Caprica.  
  
Finally her friend opened the door; Caprica looked _terrible_. Normally, Sharon would have been concerned and asked after her friend, but at that moment her daughter's wellbeing took precedent over everything.  
  
" _What,_ " Caprica asked, sounding as groggy as Helo had — and considerably crankier.  
  
"Is Hera in there with you?" Sharon asked quickly, heart pounding. "We can't find her!"  
  
Caprica straightened, irritation apparently traded for confused concern. She took a step back, scanning the room. "I don't _think_ so," she said, checking the closet, then under the bed. "Hera, sweetie? Are you in here?"  
  
Sharon hurried in, moving sheets as she looked as well. Then something occurred to her. "Where's Gauis?" She relaxed a little; perhaps Gaius had found the girl up early and taken her for a walk?  
  
Caprica looked about the room, apprehensive. "What time is it?"  
  
Sharon blinked. "It's about eleven o'clock, I think?" But Caprica's Cylon mind should have been able to determine that by the angle of the light coming in through the curtains.  
  
"In the _morning_?"  
  
Sharon didn't like the shocked and anguished look Caprica wore now; it was vastly unsettling. She took the woman gently by the arms. "Caprica, where is Gaius?" she repeated firmly, looking the woman hard in the eye. She didn't know why Caprica was having a meltdown, but it was going to have to wait until they had some answers!  
  
"H-he ... we had a fight yesterday evening, a-and he stormed out. I went to sleep ...."  
  
So she _had_ gone to sleep the night before; had she been asleep _since?_ Before Sharon could ask, Caprica slipped out of her grasp and hurried into the bathroom, heaving the contents of the previous night's supper into the toilet. Another day, Sharon might have held her friend's hair and crooned soothingly at her. Instead, Sharon hurried out of the room, out of the house, and joined Helo in calling for Hera, adding "Gaius" to her cries, still holding on to hope that he was with the child.  
  
Helo paused and stared at his wife. " _Gaius?_ " he asked, glancing towards the house with a furrowed brow. "Uh, where's Caprica?"  
  
"Sick," Sharon answered quickly. "And Gaius apparently stormed out yesterday and Caprica's been sleeping ever since. HEEERAAAA!"  
  
Looking confused and uneasy, Helo didn't ask anything more, but resumed crying Hera's name — and began calling for Gaius as well. Sharon could tell that he was worried for their friends now, too, but Gaius and Caprica would undoubtedly agree that finding Hera came first; the pair had proven themselves as dedicated to her as she and Helo were!  
  
Five minutes later, Caprica stumbled weakly from the house. "We need _help!_ " the woman said, and started to walk towards the Agathon homestead.  
  
Sharon realised that Caprica was going for the Centurions. She hurried over to her Cylon sister, taking her hand. "You stay here with Helo — _I'll_ go get Pandora and Galatea!" Giving Caprica's hand an encouraging squeeze before letting go, she raced off to her and Helo's own plot of land and their half-built home, wishing that skinjobs like her had the same connection to the wireless network as the Centurions had ....  
  
**Helo**  
  
After Sharon left, Helo finally found something, a little ways out from the house, in the brush: a strange set of human footprints. The area around the house was covered in the small prints of Hera and the larger ones of the adults that lived there — and the prints of the livestock, of course. But this set was outside the well-beaten area of the yard, bigger than Hera's prints yet smaller than those of any of the adults. He found Hera's prints leading up to just beside them; her prints stopped there, with no steps returning to the house.  
  
Could she have wandered off to play with another child? A native, maybe, or a runaway?  
  
Helo turned back to mention them to Caprica, but before he could open his mouth he noted another set of prints several yards away.  
  
Prints that were very big — and not human.  
  
"Hey Caprica, come take look at this!" he called out, gesturing her over frantically.  
  
He watched her make her way over, frowning as he noting how she seemed out of balance. And then to his alarm, he saw her double over, being quietly sick into one of the bushes.  
  
" _Caprica?_ " He hurried over to were she fell back onto the ground, panting. "Are you all right?" he asked, rubbing her shoulder. She just shook her head. "Wait here," he told her, then hurried off to the water pump, filling a cup they kept beside it.  
  
When he brought it to her, she nodded gratefully, taking a deep swallow and spitting to rinse out her mouth, then sipping gingerly. "I don't know what's wrong with me," she said, resting her head on her knees. "I've just felt so ... out of sorts or something. And then I had this dream just before Sharon woke me, one that left me feeling ... well, _sick_ , and now we can't—" her voice hitched, and Helo realised she was crying, "—can't find Hera _or_ Gaius ..." She looked up at him suddenly, grabbing his shirt. "Helo, what if it wasn't just a dream?"  
  
Helo sat beside her. He remembered the dreams that Sharon, Caprica, and Laura Roslin had shared; he'd learned to take such things seriously. "Tell me," he requested, taking her hand and squeezing it.  
  
She gave him a wan smile, squeezing back a moment. "I was sleeping — in the dream, I mean — and Gaius — well, not Gaius, the angel that looks like him — sat down on the bed and said, 'Wake up, sleepyhead! It's morning; do you know where your husband is? _I_ do; he's not _here_ , and the lion didn't sleep so well last night.' And then that's when I heard Sharon knocking. What does that _mean_ , H—What's wrong?"  
  
Helo's stomach had flopped when Caprica mentioned the lion, and he'd scrambled to his feet. "I don't think that was an ordinary dream," he told her, slipping his hands under her arms and pulling her up. He guided her over to the inhuman footprints.  
  
Lion _paw_ prints.  
  
Caprica stifled a cry with her hand, knees giving out; Helo caught her and lowered her gently to the ground. He knelt before her, gripping her upper arms. "Everything's gonna be okay, Caprica, you here me? We're gonna find them — that's why you had the vision! The angel wouldn't have bothered warning you if it was too late, right?"  
  
Caprica nodded, fighting tears.  
  
"Now, there's a strange set of tracks just over there, I think from a child, 'cause they're bigger than Hera's but smaller than Sharon's," he told her, pointing. "Hera's tracks are there too, but they stop at the other set — I think Hera wandered off with the kid. I'm going to follow the _lion_ , though, and I want you to wait here—"  
  
" _No!_ Helo, it's too dangerous for you to go after it alone!" There was an unspoken implication that it was because he was only human — Helo suspected, from some of the things she'd said and done (and that Sharon had told him), that the frailty of humans frightened her.  
  
"Listen to me!" he told her, shaking her shoulders. "Listen — if the lion's found them, they need help _immediately_. If it _hasn't_ , then I want to make sure it _doesn't_ , and wherever Hera and Gaius are, they're probably okay. So tell Sharon when she gets here to follow the _kid's_ tracks with one of our Centurions, and have the other come trail me. Tell them to contact Doc Cottle and gather as many more Centurions as will help us. I need you to stay here, so you can show them the trails, okay?" And whatever was wrong with her — and he had a strong suspicion of what the problem was — he didn't think she was up to running around. "Make sure one of the extra Centurions stays with you, so you can contact us, in case Hera or Gaius comes back on their own."  
  
Anguished, Caprica nodded.  
  
Helo hurried into the house for a pack, which he filled with a first aid kit and provisions. He then grabbed a knife and a rifle; Lee had insisted guns were for emergency use only, but Helo was pretty sure this situation qualified. Coming back outside, he hugged Caprica, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly for a moment and kissing her forehead. "We're gonna find them," he promised, then set off after the lion.  
  
Each step on the path he'd chosen was torture — mentally. What if he was making the wrong choice? What if Hera needed him right now, but it was the _other_ set of tracks that led to her? He'd already lost Hera twice before ( _three_ times, if you count how she slipped off during the final battle _after_ they'd gotten her back)! At this rate, once he found her again, he might never be able to let go of her — he'd just have to _carry_ her everywhere ....  
  
And what about Gaius? Would _either_ set of tracks lead to him? Helo was inclined to trust Caprica's vision, but what if it _was_ just a dream? What if Gaius was in some completely different and dangerous scenario — bitten by a snake, for example? As worried as Helo was for his daughter, he discovered that he had plenty of worry left for Gaius, too. The man had helped to protect Hera in CIC, for one thing. And while Helo hadn't been thrilled at the idea of his daughter being used for medical experimentation, if Gaius hadn't pointed out the fact that Hera's blood could possibly cure Laura Roslin's cancer, Roslin would have forced Sharon to _abort_ their daughter! And then there was the fact that Gaius understood better than anyone what it was to be a human in love with a Cylon. Helo knew some horrible things about Gaius — and knew that they were true — but in the months since their arrival on this new Earth, working side-by-side, Helo had grown to like him — immensely, even. Hell, they _lived_ together; the guy was practically family by now!  
  
But as anxious as he was to find his child and his friend, Helo wasn't comfortable leaving Caprica alone, either. The Sixes and Eights were generally close, but Caprica and Sharon had the added connection that they were both Cylons in love with humans. And, like Gaius, Caprica had looked after Hera, saved her — the Six had become important to Helo, too. If Helo was right about his suspicions, based on her sickness and her moods, Caprica was now carrying her _own_ child. She had miscarried once before; what if she did again because of today's stress? Well, if she was indeed pregnant, and managed to carry the child to term, Helo vowed to be as protective of _their_ child as all four of them were of Hera. In fact, he felt it was high time that he and Sharon officially acknowledged what the Baltars were to Hera, naming them her godparents instead of just playfully calling them Auntie and Uncle.  
  
He just had to _find_ Hera and Gaius, first.  
  
And he _would_.  
  
**Galatea**  
  
As Sharon Agathon rode atop Pandora's shoulders, Galatea reflected that it was a good thing that Centurions were fleeter of foot than skinjobs, given how much time had already passed since Hera's disappearance. Little Hera's odds for survival were slipping with every passing second, the probability already down to 63.249223%. It helped, too, that Sharon had the forethought, after initially asking if they had seen Hera (to which their answer was "no"), to wait until they were already running back to the Baltar homestead to actually explain what was wrong; since skinjobs could only communicate verbally, it took a little while — an agonisingly slow while, as far as computers measured time — for her to do so. By the time she was done — one minute and twenty-seven seconds later — the trip was 29.64% complete. In .347 seconds, Galatea had then transmitted a message about their situation to the entire Centurion contingent — including Asclepius and Hygea, Doctor Cottle's companions — asking them to wait on stand-bye to assist if necessary.  
  
When they reached the Baltar homestead, Galatea saw Caprica sitting on the ground, knees drawn up, head resting in her arms. Even from fifty feet away, Galatea could, thanks to her heat sensors, tell that Caprica's body temperature was .93 degrees higher than normal. The Centurion remembered that Gaius was missing as well — could that be what was causing Caprica's slight fever? Thanks to their wireless network, even from afar, medical expert Hygea was able to assure her that it was possible.  
  
Galatea wished that she could comfort Caprica from afar similarly.  
  
Instead, she had to settle for waiting until she could physically touch the woman, as skinjobs could only "hear" Centurions when they were in physical contact. Happily, Caprica sped up the process a whole 5.43 seconds by looking up when she heard their approach and coming to greet them. Caprica threw her arms around Galatea' in reply, the Centurion sent soothing thoughts as she smoothed the woman's hair in a gesture she had often seen fleshed ones used. For .097 seconds, Galatea wondered (not for the first time) what "touch", as humans and skinjobs knew the sensation, felt like compared to how Centurions knew it. Then, as Sharon hugged Caprica next, weeping along with her, Galatea found herself wishing she could cry as well, that she had some way to physically express what she was feeling herself. She cared for Gaius and Hera as much as she did any of her Cylon brethren, regardless of whatever the humans believed about Centurions being able to feel happiness or sorrow.  
  
But as they sat there, _still_ crying, for 14.329 seconds, Galatea decided enough was enough. Sadness would not serve them now if it impeded the search for Hera; Galatea suggested as much to the skinjobs, shutting down her own emotions for the time being. Not having emotions on allowed one to make choices that were more rational and made with considerably less indecision.  
  
Nodding, Sharon followed suit, her tears subsiding. She gave Caprica an expectant glance; after another 4.53 seconds, Caprica apparently relented, despite having often espoused the importance of emotions (something Galatea normally agreed with, but there was a time and place for everything). Wiping a final tear away, Caprica stood straight and calm as she filled them in on what had happened since Sharon's departure. Galatea was confused to note that Caprica's temperature was still elevated, despite her calm; she reported the problem to Asclepius and Hygea, knowing that they would look into it once Hera and Gaius were safe.  
  
It didn't even take any processing time to know that Pandora would go with Sharon to follow the print of the native child. There was also no question as to who would stay with Caprica; though Helo wanted someone to trail him, it was Galatea's duty to protect Caprica. Besides, he was right that they needed to have someone at the homestead to contact everyone if Hera showed up. So he would have to wait until someone arrived to take Galatea's place, no matter how fond she was of him.  
  
It was decided that, rather than everyone coming directly to the homestead, the Centurion contingent would spread out, marching side-by-side but dozens of feet apart in a line from the nearby town. They would cover as wide of an area as possible as they walked perpendicular to the town and parallel to the homestead. No one pointed out the obvious flaw in this: the possibility that Hera had diverged from that path that Helo assumed she had taken, and travelled out from _behind_ the homestead. It was a waste of time to contemplate such possibilities when they had a limited number of searchers compared to space to search, even with the humans and skinjobs that Asclepius reported were accompanying the Centurions. Galatea supposed it was kind of the humans to help, but communicating with the humans took many minutes, whereas it took Centurions only _micro-seconds_ to communicate amongst each other. At this rate, who knew how long it would be before anyone would get to the homestead to follow after _Helo_ finally, as he had requested? What if he'd come across the lion, and needed help?  
  
Apparently Caprica was wondering the same thing. 14.299 minutes after Sharon and Pandora had left to follow the native child's trail, another Centurion arrived, one they called Hermes. Caprica walked over to the trail Helo had taken; Galatea thought she was simply pointing it out so that Hermes could follow Helo, but then Caprica said, "Stay here please, Hermes, in case Gaius or Hera comes back. Galatea, you're with me," she added, turning and walking down the trail.  
  
Galatea quickly rose and followed, then passed the woman, blocking the way, shaking her head. This wasn't the plan.  
  
"Think about this for a moment, Galatea," Caprica told her. "What's Helo's odds of survival right now?"  
  
Galatea touched her should, transmitting that it was 76.994%.  
  
"What would it be if one Centurion went after him?"  
  
Galatea touched Caprica's arm and transmitted a reply of 93.372%.  
  
"And what would his odds be if we _both_ went after him, you and I?"  
  
Galatea transmitted a reply of 98.4377%.  
  
Caprica nodded and resumed walking, moving around Galatea. "See? Two are better than one. One Centurion has to stay at the house in case she comes home on her own, so if Hermes goes to find Helo, you can't go with him. _Me_ going after Helo with _you_ , on the other hand, while Hermes stays behind, makes more sense than us just sitting there, twiddling our thumbs — it doesn't take two to do _that_. Unless you'd rather I took Hermes instead of you to find Helo?"  
  
Shaking her head, Galatea grabbed Caprica's shoulder again, a little more forcefully. There was a statistic the woman was forgetting about: her _own_ survival. Granted, there was always danger in their world, even at home, but Caprica's odds of survival would drop 16.378% if she went after Helo, given her lack of experience as a woodsman — and that was with Galatea's travelling alongside her being factored in!  
  
"The choice — and risk — is mine," Caprica replied, walking onward again.  
  
Galatea realised then that she was forgetting something herself.  
  
She stopped Caprica once more, this time stooping down in front of her. Nodding, Caprica climbed up onto Galatea's shoulders.  
  
Caprica's survival rate went back up 9.782%.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In greek myth, sculptor Pygmalion carved a statue that was so beautiful he fell in love with it and begged Aphrodite to bring her to life. In the 18th century, she was given the name Galatea, after a myth of a sea-nymph, in retellings by authors of the day. I just like the name, and thought it kind of fit, an inanimate object given life ...
> 
> Pandora was the first woman, created of clay; she opened a jar that contained countless evils that would henceforth forever plague mankind, but managed to close the jar in time to keep hope within it. I chose the name simply for the fact that she was another being made form an inanimate substance and brought to life, but I kind of like the parallel that, where Cylons once brought down the fall of man, now, in this story, they give hope.
> 
> Hermes was the messenger of the gods.
> 
> Writing Hera' section was a bitca, trying to keep it in a child's tone/way of thinking! The first time through, I did it more externally, sounding more like an observer and adding things about Orion that she couldn't know or understand, but I decided that it just didn't fit, especially after I wrote another section for her later that was more along a child's way of thinking. Writing Galatea's section, though, was kinda fun, trying to remember to look at things the way a computer would, yet also keeping some human-like aspects to her, since the idea is that the Centurions *do* have emotions and souls. (What does that say about me, that I related better to the robot than the child? *Gulp*) I hope her perspective was as much fun for you all to read as it was to write!
> 
> The Cylon bible apparently states that skinjobs speak aloud because humans do, and God made humans after Himself, therefore they are to be emulated; that's why skinjobs either don't or can't communicate the way Centurions do, and have to touch a computer to be able to receive information from it. While early-model Centurions can speak, there is no evidence that the later models can.
> 
> It's said that skinjobs also don't really *need* sleep, but can. I figure Hera, being half human, would need less, though still need some.


	3. Seeing Stars

**Lee  
  
** It had been nearly two months since Lee had left on his initial exploratory jaunt, the Centurion trailing him like a puppy. He tried to ignore the thing in the beginning, hoping maybe it would get bored and leave him. No such luck. Or rather, lucky that it hadn't. First it had saved him from a hyena, then a hippo, then a pissy rhino. And then Lee had gotten sick, and the Centurion had kept his sorry ass from wandering off in delirium, as well as kept him fed (at least as long as he could keep food down) and watered. In his delirium, though, he thought it was Kara doing those things for him. And he spoke to it as though it were Kara — or rather, heard Kara speaking to him and replied.  
  
She'd accused him of being suicidal, of going on this adventure just to get himself killed. He pointed out that, if that were his true aim, he could go about it a lot more easily.  
  
"Ahh, you could if you weren't feeling guilty," she'd replied.  
  
"About _what_ , exactly?" he'd asked indignantly.  
  
"Your over-developed sense of responsibility," Kara had insisted. "You're running from those responsibilities, wishing for freedom, but you're a dog on a leash who is expecting to be choked by it any minute. You think the only way you can justify _breaking_ that leash is if something else comes along and eats you; then you think it won't be your fault. Well, you know what, Apollo? You either wanna live or you don't, and if you don't, you're no good to anyone."  
  
"Unless I'm like you, cross over and come back and lead everyone somewhere," Lee pointed out.  
  
"Yeah, but if _you_ cross over, where you gonna lead 'em when you come back, Lee?"  
  
He didn't have an answer for that. Instead, he told her, "I miss you."  
  
"Don't — you'll see me again. I'm not going anywhere, so don't be in such a hurry to cross over too, huh?"  
  
That was his most coherent memory from his illness. Apparently he'd started calling the Centurion Starbuck after that; when he slowly came back to his senses, he found himself addressing it that way still, and it reacting (as well as something that can't speak verbally can). He remembered his conversation with Kara on their first day on Earth, when she told him she didn't want to be forgotten. Considering all the ways the Centurion had helped him and watched his back, he decided there were worse ways he could honour Kara's memory than to give the metal her callsign. Decision made, he had the distinct feeling that Kara's ghost was smiling at him behind his back.  
  
As time went on, he and Starbuck developed ways for the Centurion to communicate. When they were stopped for the evening, the metal used chalk to write on a piece of slate; when they were out and about, she (as he'd come to think of her by then) used hand-signals. Most of the time, though, she was content to just listen to Lee as he reminisced about old times, or to write down, in a journal, observations he made aloud about the things they saw, while he took photographs. Lee soon realised that his journey had become what he'd originally planned when Kara was still with them: a matter of exploring their world, rather than finding a guilt-free way to die. Maybe that was because it was as though Kara was with him after all.  
  
At any rate, when the journal was filled, that told Lee it was time to go back to the settlement for a while. Besides, he'd found his father near the end of his journey, and he was eager to let the people know that their beloved admiral was alive and well. Lee thought he might even talk his father into coming back sometime, if only for a visit. While humans might crave solitude sometimes, they also craved society at other times. Lee was proof of that himself; the closer he got to home, the faster he walked, eager to see his friends again, at least for a little while.  
  
They were getting fairly close, when suddenly Starbuck tapped him on the shoulder with a long, metal finger. He paused, and she dug something out of her pack — his binoculars. At first he thought she was just pointing out the herd of zebra he could just barely make out off in the distance, but realized she was pointing more off to the other side. He focused on where she aimed, and saw a lion — likely dead, judging from the carrion bird on its back.  
  
"What? You think we should take a closer look?"  
  
Starbuck nodded quickly, pointing to her shoulder and bending down.  
  
Baffled at her urgency but not arguing, he climbed atop her shoulders, holding on to her head with one arm while he continued to look at the scene, zooming closer. She straightened up and took off at a dead run, her gyros making the movement nearly as smooth as a viper's flight. Still, with all the tall grass around the body, he couldn't see anything to account for her hurry; it wasn't like the lion was coming for them (and if it were, they certainly wouldn't be running towards it).  
  
He didn't see it until they were practically on top of it: a pair of human legs poking out from beneath the beastly carcass.  
  
Lee didn't wait for Starbuck to bend down again before dismounting, dropping to the ground while she was still in motion. It was probably pointless to hurry — whoever it was had to be long dead, right? But he rushed to the head of the lion anyway; Kara had guided him right before, so why not her namesake?  
  
Lee's stomach flipped as he saw a face covered in blood. He didn't even know who it was at first, but having lost so many people on the way to earth, any further loss was a devastating one. And then he realised who it actually _was_ , and felt even worse, sinking to his knees beside the body, all the hope gone out of him. Which was funny, considering how just three or four months ago he would probably have been thinking good riddance. Well, no, that wasn't true — if it was, Lee wouldn't have tried so hard to save the man at Baltar's trial, even if his reason for doing so was justice and not compassion. Lee had given Baltar a second chance at life, and the man had used it well. The settlement in general would feel this loss keenly, and a few souls in particular doubly so — to his own surprise, Lee felt he could include himself among the latter.  
  
A knot formed in his throat as he thought of the one who would be _most_ devastated by this news. She, too, had proven to be someone worth knowing, someone he had become proud to count among his friends. "I'm so sorry, Caprica ...."  
  
"Caprica?" the corpse replied weakly, brow furrowing.  
  
Lee fell back in shock, then scrambled back to Baltar's side, letting out a laugh of relief. He began assessing the damage, realising quickly that the blood on Baltar's face had actually come from the lion's eye, not Baltar himself. "Good for you, Doc ..." Lee said with a note of pride as he took a closer look at the bite. The lion's teeth were still embedded in the man's flesh, clamped tight; rigor-mortis had set in. He began to try to pry the beast's jaw apart, but stopped when Baltar gasped in pain.  
  
"Sorry, sorry!" Lee told him, but he doubted Baltar even heard him, the man's eyes fluttering closed and head lolling. Lee panicked for a moment before he saw that Baltar was at least still breathing, albeit shallowly.  
  
"Can you cut off the lion's head without hurting him?" Lee asked Starbuck.  
  
The Centurion shook her head, but before Lee had even a moment to worry about what to do, she grabbed hold of both sides of the lion's muzzle and pulled them apart, painting Baltar with more of the animal's blood. Baltar screamed, eyes wide and panicked.  
  
"It's okay, Doc, we gotcha," Lee assured him, holding him down with a hand to the chest while Starbuck almost casually flipped the animal off of the man.  
  
Lee looked at the teeth marks; it was hard to tell with all the blood, but he didn't think Baltar was bleeding too badly. He also noted swelling, bruising, and slight bony protrusions on each side — two broken clavicles! Lee winced in sympathy, but there wasn't anything he could do about it — he didn't know how to set that kind of break. He took off his pack and got out his medical kit, talking to Starbuck as he sorted through the contents. "Radio Doc Cottle's team — tell him we found Baltar after a lion attack. So far the only injury I know for sure is a bite to the shoulder and two broken clavicles. I'll radio again as soon as I know more. Send our coordinates and have him start coming towards us — if we can, we'll come meet him."  
  
Starbuck nodded and signaled when she was done.  
  
Baltar hissed and moaned and cried out a few times, but didn't otherwise complain as Lee cleaned the wound (which he worried was already infected), applied a topical antibiotic, and topped it off with a pressure bandage. "Okay, Doc, can you hear me?" Lee asked, cupping Baltar's face and turning it towards him. Baltar opened his eyes and nodded slightly. "Good, good ... listen, I'll give you some painkillers in a minute — first, I gotta figure out what else is wrong. What can you tell me?"  
  
"Rih ... ribs ..." Baltar managed, eyes screwed tight, obviously trying not to breathe too hard. Well, broken ribs made sense, considering he'd just had a half-tonne cat collapse on him.  
  
Lee glided his fingers across the man's ribcage as gently as possibly, first on the left, then the right. Baltar didn't cry out until Lee reached the lower ribs on the right side. Lee taped him up, glad to be able to do at least that much for him. He checked the man's arms next — those looked fine. When he got to Baltar's legs, he realised there were tears in the dark fabric, which revealed deep cuts; the skin was heavily bruised, but the cuts weren't bleeding too badly. As he cleaned and medicated those wounds, too, and wrapped them, Lee was more worried about how angry the skin around the wounds looked, as bad as the tears from the beast's teeth; who knew how long Baltar had been lying there like that?  
  
Lee shifted back to kneel by Baltar's head. Where it wasn't dotted with blood, the man's brow was beaded with sweat, his lips cracked, eyes fever-bright and unfocused. Lee laid the back of his hand on Baltar's forehead; it was burning up, but Lee couldn't say if it was from a fever or just being in the sun too long. He asked Starbuck to sit in a spot that would shade the poor guy while he got out his canteen.  
  
"Hey, come on buddy, stay with me," Lee told his friend, gently tapping his face. Baltar managed to meet his eyes again and retain focus for a moment. "Here," Lee said, holding the canteen near Baltar's mouth; the man tried to lift his head to take a drink, and laid back quickly with a whimper. But Baltar needed water, and pain pills too — he was going to have to sit up enough to swallow. "Okay, Doc, I'm gonna prop you up, so you can drink. This is probably gonna hurt like hell for a minute. You ready?"  
  
"Do I have a _choice_?" Baltar asked, looking decidedly unenthusiastic. Well, that was good, right? If he could be sarcastic, it probably meant he would pull through .... Baltar took a deep breathe, then said, "Go ahead."  
  
Lee slid an arm under Baltar's neck and shoulders. "Fast or slow?"  
  
"Fast," Baltar answered quickly, then seemed to hold his breath.  
  
Lee obeyed, lifting the man's torso up quickly and sliding a leg behind him, cradling him with his arm. Baltar screamed, then clamped his mouth shut, face screwed up tight in agony. His fist tightened in Lee's shirt and he shuddered, tears streaming, washing away some of the blood as they trailed down his face. After a moment, he let out his breath in a short burst inhaling just as sharply. He did that several times more, slowly relaxing, until he was breathing normally (well, close to it) once more, exhausted.  
  
"You wanna try for that drink of water again?"  
  
"Only if it's laced with morphine," Baltar croaked, eyes still closed.  
  
Lee started to laugh but instantly sobered as he heard Baltar hiss in pain with the movement. "I'm afraid I ran out of that a while ago — it's half of why I was coming back now," Lee admitted with a grin. "You'll have to settle for ibuprofen."  
  
"Any port in a storm, I suppose," Baltar agreed.  
  
Starbuck deftly removed the pills from the kit and slipped them into Baltar's mouth, and Lee held the canteen to Baltar's mouth, managing to get some of the liquid in rather than on him.  
  
"How ya feelin?" Lee asked after a few minutes. Baltar seemed to be drifting out of consciousness, and Lee wasn't sure if the man would come out of it again if he fell too deeply asleep.  
  
"Afraid," Baltar replied.  
  
"Well, don't be. The lion's dead; I think the worst is over. Doc Cottle will be here soon; you're gonna be fine."  
  
"That's not what I'm afraid of," Baltar said, shaking his head slightly and wincing. "I _know_ I'm going to make it — I'm going to be a _father_."  
  
Lee almost dropped the man. "Caprica is _pregnant_? Baltar, that's fan _tas_ tic!" he laughed, forgetting himself. "Uh, congratulations!"  
  
"Yes ..." Baltar said faintly, his eyes tearing and lips tightening. "I'm going to be a father, and I'm absofrakkinglutely _terrified_. What the hell sort of dad am I going to be?" He closed his eyes again, tears streaming.  
  
"What are you talking about? You're gonna be a _great_ dad! I've seen you with—"  
  
"Don't! Just ... don't. Don't give me some—" he inhaled sharply "—placating song and dance, all right?"  
  
Lee scowled, perplexed at Baltar's self-loathing. "I'm not, I _mean_ it—"  
  
"You _know_ what kind of a man I've been — no, wait, you _don't_ really know," he gasped, " _do_ you? You only _think_ you know!" He struggled to rise.  
  
Lee tightened his grip, wrapping his other arm around him. "Hey, come on, now, lie still! You're gonna hurt yourself even worse if you keep this up!"  
  
"GOOD!" Baltar sobbed. "I _deserve_ it! It's _my fault_ the Cylons attacked Caprica! I didn't _know_ what I was doing, didn't know I'd fallen in love with a Cylon, but I—" he gasped " _I gave Caprica the codes that allowed them to get past our defences!_ "  
  
Lee felt his blood turn cold, all the warmth he'd felt towards the doctor flash-frozen. He shoved the man out of his embrace, feeling no remorse at Baltar's scream of agony. He didn't worry when Baltar didn't move after, probably having passed out from the pain. Lee got to his feet and began to pace, running shaking hands through his hair, at a loss; what should he do? Call Cottle back and tell him to forget it, and just leave the man there? Bring Baltar back for another trial? How could this be happening? Baltar lived, and yet Lee felt like another friend had just died, like all those that died on Caprica, and on the journey here. All because of this man. Lee closed his eyes tightly, as if he might find the answers easier that way.  
  
"Do you think he's going to cause the deaths of anyone here?"  
  
Lee's eyes snapped open, Kara sitting where her Centurion namesake had been sitting a moment before.  
  
"What?" he asked intelligently.  
  
"If you kill him because he's a threat to the well-being of the populace, that's protection. But if you kill him because of what he's done in the past ... that's revenge, Lee, and the only purpose it'll serve is to put a stain on your heart while also breaking Caprica's."  
  
"It's _justice!_ " Lee sputtered. "We're settled, we have structure again — we can't still let crimes go unpunished!"  
  
"Is that what you're after? Punishment is about teaching someone to never do something again; I'd say he's learned the lesson already. Besides," she continued, getting to her feet, "it'd make you a hypocrite."  
  
"And how do you figure that?" he asked tightly.  
  
"Well, seeing as he was President of the people of New Caprica when he surrendered to the Cylons, he was technically responsible for the subsequent deaths of thousands, particularly those for whom he'd signed death warrants. And yet you fought for his life at his trial, saying he'd just made mistakes in a bad situation. He gave us to the Cylons _knowingly_ then, rather than by accident."  
  
"That was ... different," he replied, wondering if it really was.  
  
"Why?" she asked, circling him, hands in her pockets. "Because it was only a few thousand lost that time instead of billions? So how about the Cylons, then? They sought to destroy humanity, yet now they live beside you in peace. They betrayed _their_ brethren for _your_ sake — they're traitors to their race! If you're going to put Baltar on trial for treason again, it would only be fair that you do the same to them. But that would start another war, wouldn't it?"  
  
She stopped in front of him, wearing the impish grin he remembered all to well on her face. "Roslin knew what he did, ya know. She knew, and she almost let him die on the Cylon baseship, but then she _saved_ him because an angel talked her into it. Made her believe that she had to prove she had compassion or else the Gods wouldn't consider humanity worth saving. But what's more interesting about that incident is what Baltar told her when he broke the news in the _first_ place. Do you remember what your dad told you that Baltar said to Cavil about God?"  
  
"That ... that it was a force of nature?" Lee said uncertainly.  
  
Kara nodded. "And on the baseship, Baltar told Roslin that he was the flood, God's instrument to rejuvenate humanity. And hey, just because he was arrogant as hell back then doesn't mean he was _wrong_ , exactly. Still, while at the time he thought that that being chosen by God excused what he'd done, he understands now that being God's instrument doesn't make him a good person by default — because good is a _human_ concept. Baltar himself said as much. Besides, Cavil was made by that force of nature too, after all, and Zarek. And _me_ — we sure as hell know _I'm_ not an ideal person," she added, nudging him with her elbow; Lee smiled ruefully. Kara sobered. "But despite my flaws, we know God, the Gods, _it_ , whatever, had a purpose for me, too. You remember what _I_ said, back when the Cylons gave us the location of that other Earth?"  
  
Lee thought about it a moment. "I think you said that something was guiding us, wanted us to find Earth _with_ the Cylons."  
  
"And we did, didn't we?" she asked, spinning around with her arms spread. "Humans and Cylons settled _together_. And Baltar and Caprica protected Hera, just like the visions that Caprica, Sharon, and Roslin had shared said that they would — the visions that _something_ sent them."  
  
"But like you said, that doesn't _excuse_ what Baltar did, on _either_ of the Capricas," Lee tried to argue.  
  
"But you don't even _know_ what he did on the first Caprica, do you? I mean, you know _what_ , but not the _hows_ or _whys_. Hell, really, you only know what _he_ thinks he did: betrayed humanity," she pointed out, sitting down and taking the slate and chalk, the tools that her Centurion counterpart used for communication, out of the bag.  
  
"So what else _did_ he do?" Lee snapped, throwing his hands up, tired of riddles. He'd had enough of puzzles on the way _to_ this world ....  
  
"He fell in love, imperfect and impure as it was back then," Kara replied lightly, sketching something out on the slate. "He fell in love with a woman that he thought was only a _corporate_ spy, a human, and in an incredibly stupid moment of lust-ridden weakness, he risked everything to please her, to thank her for things she'd done for him. He just had no way of knowing quite how _much_ he risked. But if it hadn't been him that had done it, it would have been someone else. Or else we simply would have destroyed ourselves, just like the Cylons on that other Earth." She held up the slate with a drawing of a crowd of people. "That 'force of nature' was going to wipe the slate clean no matter what," she said, running her hand over the image, erasing it. She started drawing again. "Baltar wasn't a _traitor_ , Lee, just a fool. Is that worth letting him die for and leaving his son fatherless over? Will that bring old Caprica back? The planet, I mean," she added with a wink.  
  
Lee sighed, sinking to the ground beside Baltar, his lip curled in disgust. "No. But I don't know how I can look at him the same again."  
  
"So don't. See more of the picture," she told him, holding up the slate again.  
  
She had drawn a picture of Baltar at a desk, surrounded by skinjobs. The lines became a photographic image, which started to move. As he watched it, he saw Baltar being forced at gunpoint to sign the death order against the insurgents, a tear falling down the man's cheek, and heard what the Cylons said to Baltar at the time.  
  
"That's right," Kara said when it was over, "Gaeta _lied_ about Baltar going along with the order willingly. I think you summed up the heart of the situation pretty nicely at the trail. Baltar was just a coward, not some villain looking to destroy the world. Being afraid to die isn't a crime, right?"  
  
Lee couldn't help but think that was especially funny, coming from her, but he kept the comment to himself as she went on.  
  
"And come on, what good would it have done if he'd stood against them anyway? He simply would have been killed, and the Cylons would have gone through with the death orders anyway. Lampkin was right too, when he said at the trial that Roslin's unwillingness to surrender would have gotten _more_ people killed than actually were. Baltar's compliance, however cravenly and self-serving, convinced the Cylons that they didn't have to wipe us out, that we could be reasoned with. Caprica Six spoke in defense of the humans for _his_ sake. And over time, that grew into a true alliance, didn't it? The Cylons probably would have destroyed our homeworld _without_ his particular help, would have gotten the codes some other way or come up with another plan, but would Six have made the effort to reach peace with humanity without having fallen in love with Baltar first? Would she have fallen in love with anyone _else_ , with the same result? Would there be any humans left now, if Gaius didn't have something in him, even then, worth loving?"  
  
Lee wanted to argue, but before he could, she held up the slate again.  
  
"And even _without_ Caprica Six beside him, he pleaded humanity's case to the Cylons and convinced them that an alliance was the best course," Kara continued. On the slate, Lee saw Baltar talking to D'Anna, convincing her that her purpose was to bring a peaceful end to the war.  
  
"That may be true, but it _still_ doesn't make what he did on Caprica and New Caprica any less disgusting!" Lee protested.  
  
Kara shrugged. "As I said, you already essentially forgave him for the second instance, when he actually _knew_ what he was doing; he _didn't_ know the _first_ time that he was cooperating with Cylons. And were his actions any more disgusting than Roslin's trying to get him executed for things he didn't do, especially after he'd saved her life? I mean, really, that's gratitude for ya, right? Or how about Tigh's having _killed_ Ellen and then tried to pin _that_ on Baltar, just to get _him_ killed, too? I didn't see you clamoring for Tigh's blood _then_. In fact, I seem to recall you saying at the trial that _everyone_ had done reprehensible things, that if Baltar was to stand trial for his crimes, then so must you all. Has that changed?"  
  
Lee wanted to say yes. He wondered if this was how his father had felt at the trail, when it came time for the verdict. "No."  
  
Kara nodded, then shrugged. "Even so, it seems even _Baltar_ , at least in part, agrees with _you_."  
  
The slate showed Baltar talking to a woman. She was telling him that she'd been told by the ship's doctors that her son, Derrick, was fatally ill; looking the boy over, Baltar agreed with the assessment, saying that there was nothing he could do for the child. The scene changed, showing Baltar standing in a room full of sleeping people — his cult. The man was leaving but then stopped, apparently changing his mind. He knelt by the body of the sick boy and quietly prayed, calling himself worthless and begging God to take his life over the child's, tears in his eyes.  
  
"He's ... he really _meant_ it?" Lee didn't believe for a moment that Kara would show him something false and present it as truth, but he had to ask, to be sure that he was seeing what he _thought_ he was seeing.  
  
"He did," Kara confirmed, smirking. "No crocodile tears were used in the making of that prayer."  
  
The scene changed, and Lee witnessed a man attacking Baltar, holding a razor to his throat. Then, inexplicably, he saw Caprica standing before Baltar, asking if he'd really meant what he'd said before. His throat bleeding, Baltar began to beg his assailant to take his life, only to be saved by one of his followers. When Baltar returned to the cult, he found that the boy's fever had broken.  
  
"That was one of the angels Gaius spoke of, by the way," Kara revealed.  
  
"It was true," Lee whispered, tears in his own eyes despite himself, his anger evaporating. "The miracle rumour that went around the fleet — I thought it was just Baltar taking credit, trying to gain followers ...."  
  
"Ha! Followers were the _last_ thing Baltar wanted, even then. When he asked you to let his people have representation in the government, did you even _notice_ that he said it _didn't_ have to be him? He was actually _hoping_ you would pick someone else — when he made the suggestion, he was just trying to do right by those people because no one else would! He stood up for them when they were persecuted, encouraged them to share what they had with those less fortunate, sought out the means to protect them when others threatened them, and even if his ego was part of why he did those things, it was _only_ part — there were also a sense of shame and a desire to help in the mix. Would a truly evil man feel shame, much less wish to atone for his actions?"  
  
On the slate, Lee watched as a furious Baltar, ashamed of having hidden during the vicious attack by the Sons of Aries, took a stand for his people — and a beating. He saw the angel lie to him, saying he wouldn't be hurt, and saw her shove the man at the soldier again and again -- forced into pain by an angel, of all things!  
  
"Yeah, okay, so Baltar _wasn't_ exactly taking that beating voluntarily," Kara remarked. "But the words he spoke before he got his ass kicked were his. _And_ the words _after_."  
  
Lee watched as Baltar spoke to the crowd after the incident, saying how he'd done horrible things, but he knew God loved him, loved them all, and they had to love themselves in order to love others. There was no angel around, feeding him lines. Lee remembered this, remembered witnessing it himself. At the time, he had assumed that Baltar was just schmoosing the crowd.  
  
"He _was_ schmoosing he crowd," Kara said, apparently reading Lee's mind. "It's second nature to him — he does it without even trying. That's partly why that 'higher power', or whatever ya wanna call it, chose him." She leaned forward a little, whispering conspiratorially. "But that doesn't mean he didn't believe what he was saying that day, and that he wasn't at least partially _right_. Leoben, too, preached embracing the self and accepting one's path, and it's that kind of thinking that brought us here at last. Back then, Baltar was thinking aloud, coming to a realisation about himself — there just happened to be an audience for it. He prepared himself, and others, for what we ultimately had to do to survive. And if he hadn't talked himself into believing those things, that he wasn't some unforgivable monster for the things he'd done, how could he have moved forward? How could he have done those people any good if he curled in on himself, wallowing in guilt? These people needed hope, and in finding it for himself, he gave it to _them_ , too. Isn't that why you talked him into joining the Quoram here?"  
  
Lee didn't get a chance to answer, the slate still having things to show him. He saw Baltar reach out to a grieving Chief Tyrol repeatedly, despite receiving nothing but hostility for his trouble at first. Baltar walked alone, without an audience, into the quarters of a man who had tried to strangle him, just because he believed the man needed comfort, piece of mind, even more than most. As if he somehow knew the crisis Galen was going through beyond his wife's death: the realisation that he was really a Cylon. Of course, it was also obvious that Baltar was there seeking some absolution; Baltar readily admitted to Galen that he had committed unconscionable acts for which he was seeking redemption. But it's not like the man hadn't admitted it, and it didn't negate the good he was trying to do for Galen in turn. And again, he did it on his own, without the angelic teleprompter.  
  
The man did other things on his own as well. Lee saw him preach equality to a Cylon. Saw him, after having tested the water on the Cylon Earth of his own volition, warn people not to drink it, nor eat any of the plants.  
  
And then Lee watched Baltar listen and speak kindly to Felix Gaeta — a supposed friend who first tried to kill him directly and then lied in an attempt to get him executed — moments before the man's own execution. Baltar sought no absolution there, had nothing to gain in forgiving Felix, but did it anyway, offering comfort when he would have been within his rights to withhold it.  
  
He saw Baltar share food with others in Dogsville, spurring others to do the same.  
  
"Yeah, uh, just to clarify? He got the idea to do that in the first place because that woman he was talking to was hot," Kara admitted. "But still, you have to admit that it was a pretty grand and good gesture, all the same — how many other guys would go _that far_ to impress a pretty face? And how many truly bad men would do such good in the name of evil?"  
  
Eyes still on the slate, Lee smirked. Then he saw Baltar talking to the angel, saying that he'd come to enjoy giving. At her behest, the man roused his people into feeling that they weren't too weak to help others, that it was the right thing to do — and that they would get bigger guns than the Sons of Aries to do it.  
  
"And again, while the idea wasn't entirely his — he _believed_ in the righteousness of it, made it possible, both by giving the crowd strength and conviction and by getting your father — and _you_ — to give him the guns. He might not have been entirely altruistic, but he was learning, growing. Besides, who is?" she added, shrugging. "Now, if you still want someone to hate, though, those Sons of Aries bastards, man, they're really somethin'. Maybe Baltar wasn't generous for the _best_ of reasons, but at least he _was_."  
  
Lee remembered that day. Kara was right; it might have been his father's decision to give Baltar the weapons, but Lee _could_ have stopped him and _didn't_. Something in him had trusted Gaius, at least enough to _arm_ him.  
  
"Hey, I just realised something ..." Kara began, apparently shifting gears now that the images on the slate faded to black again. "You still thought that Baltar's miracle with Derrick was a lie, even _after_ my coming back from the  </I>dead?</I>" She laughed incredulously; even when she was insulting him, that laugh reminded him why he loved her. "Wow, are you slow on the uptake!" Her smile grew fond and gentle and a little sad. "But I also know, from personal experience, that you _can_ be quick enough to forgive. So how could it be so hard to forgive Baltar, who, unlike some of your friends, _isn't_ a cold-blooded murderer?" She winked at him.  
  
"Do you count _yourself_ among the cold-blooded murderers?" he asked, bemused.  
  
"No, the _hot_ -blooded! Well, at least while I still had a frakkin' human body." She grinned.  
  
He goggled at her. "You mean ... you really are the _Centurion_ , not just some hallucination?"  
  
"Eh, not quite as simple as that. Let's just say I'll always be there for you — one way or another. Aaaanyway, getting back to the _subject_ ," she stressed, giving him a pointed look, "as much as you _could_ hate Baltar, trust me: you could _never_ hate him more than he hates _himself_ , no matter what he says about God loving him. And really, what good would it do _you_ to _try_ to hate him more — or at all? _You're_ the one who said that this world was a clean slate for humanity, a chance to do things right, to go forward with just the best of mankind and leave the worst behind. Baltar pretty much made that clean slate possible; doesn't he deserve the same chance? Hasn't he proven that, lousy as he _can_ be, there's good in him too?"  
  
Lee sighed. How _could_ he forgive the man who had, practically single-handedly, brought about the end of their old existence, one that probably anyone in the settlement would return to in a heartbeat, if given a chance? Yet Lee couldn't deny any of the things Kara had said — particularly since she basically had just been reminding him of things he had said himself!  
  
"Look at him, Lee. _Really_ look — what do you see?"  
  
Lee did as she asked, looking down at Baltar's still form at his feet.  
  
He saw a man who, despite his obvious terror, had picked up a gun and fought to save a little girl, and who had begged a god to take his life in exchange for that of another child. A man who had shown remorse and yet had been ostracised — by Lee himself — despite his efforts to make amends. A man whose arrogance had once known far fewer limits than his many fears did, but then, nobody was perfect (regardless of what Baltar himself claimed about God making them so). And anyway, that arrogance had been virtually nonexistent of late, even while people came to Baltar from far and wide for advice on everything from farming to hard science to matters of the spirit.  
  
He saw a man who loved his wife above all, and was loved by her in return. A man who was about to be a father, and was terrified, like every dad should be, of screwing that up.  
  
He saw a man who had been a good friend these past few months, to the populace in general and Lee in particular.  
  
He saw a man who didn't look like he was breathing.  
  
" _Frak!_ " Panic surged through Lee as he rolled Baltar onto his back. He gave a sigh of relief when the man cried out from the movement — not that he was happy Baltar was in pain, but at least the man was alive! "Sorry for, ah, dropping you like that. You all right?"  
  
" _Hera!_ " At first, Lee thought Baltar was calling out to the old goddess, out of habit. "Where is she? Is she all right?" Baltar asked, wide-eyed, grabbing Lee's shirt in an iron grip.  
  
Finally it hit Lee. "Hera _Agathon_?"  
  
_Like I said, slow on the uptake,_ Kara chuckled in his ear. He looked up and saw the Centurion sitting where Kara had been.  
  
"The lion — I saw it going after her, so I—" Baltar inhaled sharply "— _hit_ the bloody thing and told her to run. Have you seen her? Is she okay? And there was a-another child with her, a native ...."  
  
Lee scanned the horizon anxiously. All he saw was something of a trail in the tall grass, heading back towards the homestead. "I don't see her, but she probably went home. You killed the lion, Doc," he pointed out, a note of amazement in his voice, "so she's— _they're_ safe, don't worry. We just gotta find them is all — and we _will_ , I promise. Starbuck, can you carry him while I'm on your shoulders?" The sooner they got the man home — and found Hera — the better.  
  
The Centurion nodded, leaning forward; Lee climbed up on her shoulders. He still felt silly riding like this — especially now, given Kara's visitation — but practicality won out over pride. Kneeling carefully beside him, Starbuck then lifted Baltar into her arms, gently. The man whimpered, agony written across his face, but not as much as he probably would have if Lee had tried to carry him. Starbuck could move more smoothly across the terrain; even so, the man still cried out now and then along the way. Lee felt a twinge of sympathy, easily, every time, worrying that the man was hurt worse than he could see.  
  
He asked Starbuck to contact Cottle again and say that they were now on their way. He also asked her to contact the other Centurions as well, to have them come sweep the area in search of Hera, not sure if anyone even knew the girl was missing, much less where she might be. Starbuck nodded her compliance.  
  
Lee wished she would talk with Kara's voice _all_ the time ....  
  
**Cottle**  
  
Unlike many humans, Cottle had no qualms whatsoever about working with Cylons, not even Centurions, not even before the last battle. In fact, given how much the humans had cut back on technology since settling on this Earth, he considered Asclepius, Hygea, and the Two, Eight, and Six that had joined his staff all godsends. (Contrary to popular belief, his calling the skinjobs by their model number wasn't a sign of disrespect — as far as he was concerned, those were surnames.) Besides being strong and tireless, Asclepius and Hygea in particular allowed him to get where he needed quickly, both by being alerted through the Centurion wireless network, which was so powerful that it had planet-wide access without a need for towers, and by carrying him to patients or them to him. Further, their gyros and microprocessors allowed the Centurions to carry the injured with a minimal amount of jarring or swaying, unlike wagons or the few vehicles that they still had. The skinjobs, meanwhile, besides assisting him like any human could, also acted as "interpreters" for the Centurions. As far as Cottle was concerned, at the end of the day, so long as lives were saved, he didn't much care how he saved them.  
  
Besides, Cylons did a better job of listening to orders.  
  
Case in point, when the call had come in about Hera and Gaius having gone missing, his human counterparts had scrambled around the clinic, arguing with him about what supplies to take, what route to take, and who should go. The Cylons, on the other hand, simply gathered what he'd told everyone to and stood at the ready — if anything, _he_ held _them_ up. And then when the call came in from Lee's Centurion, saying that they had found Gaius, the humans milled about _again_ , while the Cylons had readjusted their plans in _seconds_. Based on things like knowledge of Starbuck's speed and the surrounding terrain, they _knew_ what course to take, no questioning or arguing. They also didn't try to talk him out of going himself, and Six and Hygea didn't complain or argue when he told them to stay behind, in case they needed for him to contact the clinic. When he, Two, and Eight were ready to leave, the humans were still dragging their feet.  
  
So he left them behind.  
  
Asclepius carried him; on the way, they met with several more Centurions, a couple of which gave lifts to Eight and Two. There were other skinjobs interspersed with the Centurions, most of them on foot so they could search better for prints; Cottle was impressed with how they just got the job done, searching the brush for little Hera, no arguing. He noted that they all carried canteens, and a number of them had medical kits, in case Hera was hurt. There was a small smattering of humans with them, but Cottle guessed that most of the humans were still getting organised. Not that it mattered; the Cylons were more likely to find her anyway.  
  
It wasn't really that Cottle was some "frakking toaster-lover" so much as that he loved efficiency. Efficiency saved lives.  If the humans could do the job as well as his Cylon companions had, he'd love them too.  
  
His "team", which had grown to include several more Centurions with skinjobs and even humans on their backs, hurried past the rest of the searchers. It wasn't that their new additions were there to help them, though, so much as to protect them on the way and then go searching out past where they were meeting Apollo, in case Hera had indeed gone out in another direction. That suited Cottle just fine; he'd take the protection for as long as it lasted, and live without once they left. Cottle was a man who took things in stride.  
  
Still, there were times when even he could stumble a little, metaphorically-speaking, and the sight of a bloody Baltar, when they reached him and his saviors twenty minutes later, was one of them.  
  
The man had a well-substantiated reputation of being a weak-willed, craven egomaniac to begin with, and after Baltar had begged Cottle to scan his brain for no apparent reason, Cottle had come to think of the man as something of a hypochondriac as well. Which was not to say that Cottle hated the man or anything. He certainly would strive just as hard to save Baltar's life, in any circumstance, as he would fight for the likes of the Roslins and Adamas of the world. But Baltar's having fought and killed a _lion_? He'd had a hard time believing that, figuring that the thing had to have been half-dead to begin with. Cottle almost expected Baltar to only be a bit bruised with a scrape or two. Lee was no doctor; Cottle knew he wouldn't lie, but figured the kid had to be mistaken about the severity of Baltar's injuries.  
  
Cottle didn't think he had ever been more wrong.  
  
With help from Asclepius, Lee's Centurion (whom Cottle had heard Lee call Starbuck, which brought a tear to the old man's eye) lowered Baltar gently to the ground; even so, the man let out a whimper of pain. His pulse was a little fast but not worryingly so. His breathing was shallow and rapid — understandable, considering the pain he was in if Lee was accurate about his injuries. The man's lips were cracked, his skin a scalded red and hot to the touch. Cottle wasn't sure if it was the sunburn or an infection that had him so feverish — probably both.  
  
"Get him in shade, please," Cottle ordered, kneeling beside Baltar, ignoring his own aches and pains born of old age. The Centurions rapidly unfurled blankets and created a makeshift tent. "Lift his head, will you?" Cottle asked Lee in the meantime, getting ready to slip a folded blanket beneath the patient's skull. Like the Cylons, Lee quickly did as he was told, Cottle noted approvingly. That done, Cottle did his best to rouse Baltar out of his stupor and get some water past his lips. Baltar sputtered a little but managed to swallow some of it — a good sign. Cottle moved his attention to the bite on the man's shoulder, gently removing the bandage. The wound, an ugly, jagged affair, was angry but clean, and the bleeding had mostly stopped; the same proved true of the injuries on his legs. Cottle nodded approvingly to Lee. He felt around for internal injuries, then, finding none, turned his attention to Baltar's ribcage next.  
  
"Well," Cottle said finally, leaning back, "it looks like Lee found all the breaks in your ribs, but we'll need x-rays to be sure. I don't need an x-ray to tell me that your collarbone is broken, though."  
  
"Funny, neither do I," Gaius replied half-heartedly, his voice like gravel.  
  
Cottle chuckled sympathetically. "In a minute, you won't even be able to tell what your name is, much less what hurts," he promised, sticking a needle in the back of Baltar's hand to use for an IV. The man didn't even flinch, the pain from his collarbones and the bite probably overriding everything else. Cottle fed a dose of morphine through the needle, then acetaminophen for the fever and an antibiotic, then hooked Baltar up to some chilled saline, with Two holding the bag up for the moment. Baltar's breathing smoothed a bit; soon, he seemed to be asleep, though his brow was still troubled.  
  
"Hera?" he muttered drowsily.  
  
"We'll find her, Doc, don't worry," Lee promised, gripping Baltar's wrist reassuringly. He looked down at his own bloodied hand and frowned. "Although I suppose I ought to clean up a bit, or I'll _scare_ her!"  
  
Starbuck dug into a pack, pulling out a towel, a bar of soap, and a fresh shirt and handing them to him. Thanking her, he stripped out of his stained shirt, wet the towel from his canteen, and did a passable job of cleaning himself up.  
  
Looking at what a mess Baltar was, Cottle decided, for Caprica's sake, it would be best to try to clean him up a bit as well; not to mention, Cottle knew from experience, dried blood on your skin was damn uncomfortable. With Eight and Lee's help, Cottle removed Baltar's shirt and cleaned off the blood on the man's face and torso as gently as he could. Baltar was still pretty banged up, but he looked much better after their efforts at least.  
  
When they were ready, Cottle climbed back up on Asclepius. Lee and Eight got Baltar onto a litter, which Asclepius then carefully took up in his arms. Two handed Cottle the saline bag before mounting one of the other Centurions, Eight perching on still another.  
  
"You okay to go back by yourself, Doc?" Lee asked from the ground.  
  
Cottle nodded, realising just then that the bulk of their escort had gone on as planned. "The whole area's being swept by Centurions — I'm sure there won't be any more lions to give us any trouble on the way. In fact, Two, why don't you go with him? In case Hera needs medical attention." It was horrible to think of, but still a possibility.  
  
"Thanks, Doc." Lee nodded and turned to Starbuck, then paused, looking back at Cottle. "Is ... is he gonna be okay?"  
  
Cottle took in the grave expression on the young man, puzzled but pleased to see him show compassion for one Gaius Baltar, once the most hated man in the fleet. "Yeah. He's tougher than I thought! He's dehydrated, and he's going to be in a lot of pain, but unless scans show us something we can't see, none of his injuries are fatal. I'm confident that he'll pull through with antibiotics and plenty of rest. It's lucky you found him when you did!"  
  
Looking oddly haunted, Lee nodded. "Take good care of him, okay Doc?"  
  
"You betcha," Cottle promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, my inner hurt/comfort and redemptionistra fiends had a tooootal field day with this chapter, if you hadn't already guessed. :mwahaha: I hope some other hurt/comfort fiends and Baltar redemptionistras enjoyed it too! And what did I tell you about my fondness for philosophising/exploring issues of morality? I hope you weren't bored, but if you were ... well, I warned you. ;P
> 
> This is the second time a broken clavicle has made an appearance in my work. XD I have never broken one, but I do, now and again, get a deep, arthritis-like ache in them, as if I had. Very odd. But anyway, it made sense for them to get broken if he's been pushed over by a lion and had the thing land on him. *Shrug* As for the IV in the back of the hand, that's one of the places I had one when I was in the hospital, and I gotta say, it was the most comfortable and offered the most mobility.
> 
> When I decided to give Starbuck the slate, I had no idea I would find another use for it, but I'm pleased with how that played out!
> 
> If any of you want to read a little Baltar/Lee slash into this chapter, be my guest. I hadn't ever really considered it before, being such a hard-core Baltar/Six shipper and being rather fond of the idea of Lee/Kara, but now that I think on it, there's a certain appeal there for me in the BG/LA pairing as well. *Cough* Still, I think it reads fine as just friendship too -- I hope.
> 
> Asclepius was a minor greek God of healing. Hygea (more commonly Hygieia or Hygeia), his daughter (or his wife, depending on the source), was a goddes of health and cleanliness; we get the word "hygiene" from her.


	4. Meeting the Neighbors

**Hera**  
  
The world became increasingly familiar the further Hera went, and her fears subsided accordingly. She knew with the certainty of a young child that, if she could just get home to Mommy and Daddy, they would make everything better, pure and simple, the way Uncle Gaius had made things better with the lion. Good girls went home, and were rewarded for being good; that was just how things were.  
  
Things grew a little complicated for a moment, then, when she spotted her father coming towards her.  
  
Still a ways off, she could see him, towering above the tall grass as he did, but she didn't think _he_ could see _her_ yet. Fear creeped back in; would she still be considered a good girl if he found her before she reached home? Or would she, having failed to achieve victory, be a bad girl, and get in trouble? She looked around, trying to decide whether or not it would be better to hide now and sneak back.  
  
As she looked behind her, though, she remembered Orion. She was inclined to believe that, if she was victorious, if she made it back home without being seen arriving, as if she had been there all along, then Orion would automatically be okay, everything that had happened when she was away somehow magically erased. Yet something about that notion just didn't feel right.  
  
Besides, he was hurting, and even if that pain was erased once she made it home, it wasn't nice to make him suffer _now_ , was it? Especially if her father wasn't coming home any time soon; what if her mother wasn't home when she got there either, and he _wasn't_ made instantly well? Then who would help him?   
  
Besides, her parents wouldn't make him — or Uncle Gaius — suffer, even if she was a bad girl, would they? They would still help, even if she was caught out here, failing to make it home, wouldn't they?    
  
She honestly wasn't sure.   
  
But then it didn't matter anymore: her father had spotted her, finally.  
  
" _Hera!_ " he cried, sprinting towards her. In a few seconds, she found herself swept off her feet and held tight; in that moment, her fears and worries vanished. He set her down and knelt beside her, looking her over. "You all right?" he asked. She nodded. He picked her up and began to walking the other way.  
  
"No!" she cried, squirming. "Help Orion and Uncle Gaius!" she demanded.  
  
Her father stopped and set her down, grabbing her shoulders. She quailed a little, afraid that he was angry after all.  
  
"Did you _see_ Uncle Gaius out there?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Sweetie, _where_ did you see him?"  
  
She pointed back the way she'd come.  
  
"Hera, what do you mean, help? Did Uncle Gaius get an owie?"  
  
She shrugged; she had no idea if Gaius was hurt or not, but Orion definitely was. "Help Orion first!"   
  
"Who's Orion?" her father asked.   
  
Uh-oh. That's right, her father didn't know about her late-night games. She was going to get in trouble for that. Still, Orion needed help .... "Friend," she said, shrugging, then pointed. "That way. He can't run anymore. There was a snake ...."  
  
Her father looked in the direction she was pointing, then back at her, scowling. He did that several times. "Damnit ..." he muttered.  
  
She laughed; "damnit" was a bad word. Then she got an idea. She slipped away from her father, hurrying back the way she'd come.  
  
" _Hera!_ Stop, _now!_ " her father demanded. She could feel his footsteps behind her, and felt his hands close around her a moment later, lifting her.  
  
"Help Orion, or I'll tell Mommy you said a bad word," Hera demanded in return.  
  
Helo looked back and forth a few times, down both directions of the trail. "Damnit," he whispered again, lifting Hera above his head to sit atop his shoulders and running off towards Orion. It reminded her of riding on a Centurion, but bumpier.  
  
It had seemed like forever for Hera to get as far as she had when her father had found her; it only seemed _half_ of forever to get back. In fact, if not for the tree — since there weren't all that many of them out this way — she wouldn't have even guessed that they might be in the right place yet. As it was, Orion was hard to see at first; he was always covered in mud and white paint, which made him blend into things.  
  
When they got closer, she noticed that Orion's leg looked funny: twice as thick as normal, with two bleeding holes. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing hard and sweating a lot, like he'd been running — _had_ he been? She noticed a funny smell and saw a puddle of goop off to the side of Orion — Hera figured he'd thrown up, like Auntie Caprica had done yesterday.  
  
" _Zeus_ ..." her father said, setting her down and kneeling next to Orion. He touched the side of Orion's neck; Orion only gave a little start and fell back to sleep. "Well, kid, you're lucky Doc Cottle's worked so hard to make sure they have antivenins at the clinic for all the poisonous critters out here," Daddy told Orion, taking a box out of his bag — Hera recognised it as their first aid kit. "Sweetie, did you see the snake that bit him?" Daddy asked her.  
  
Hera nodded. She remembered her mother showing her a dead one once. What had she called it ...? "Puffy sadder!" she remembered.  
  
"Puff adder," her father corrected as he began to wipe the bite with the small, smelly wet pads than always made her eyes water. What had mommy called them? Rubber Uncle Hol's pads?  
  
"Can I help?" she asked.  
  
"Sure, you wanna open the canteen and pour a little bit of water on this?" her father asked, holding up a cloth with a bar of soap in it.  
  
Hera did as he asked, wondering if he was going to try to give Orion a bath without a bathtub. Sure enough, her father lathered up the cloth, then asked her to pour a little water over Orion's leg; she did as she was told, and her father washed the paint and mud off of. Hera wondered if Orion would be upset that his decorations were gone. Maybe he wouldn't notice; after washing the leg, Hera helped her father wrap it in bandages, covering the now-clean skin.  
  
"Okay, Hera, I want you to carry the backpack," he told her, slipping it over her shoulders. Hera preened, being given something so Very Important to do. "You're gonna ride piggyback, but you're gonna have to wrap your legs around me and hold on tight so I can used both arms to carry your friend, all right?" Her father sighed then. "I hope a Centurion finds us soon; somebody's gotta go find your Uncle Gaius ...." He stooped down so Hera could wrap her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Then he picked up Orion, grunting. "Oh yeah, definitely not gonna be able to do this for long." He looked around. "You know, I'm not sure how to get to the clinic from here. We better follow the trail back towards home until I start recognising things, eh? Besides, we'll run into a Centurion sooner or later, and they can get your friend to the clinic a lot faster than I could."  
  
Her father walked much slower going home than he had on the way to find Orion. After they'd been travelling for a while, as they climbed over a rise, Hera caught movement out of her eye, to her left: people who looked like Orion, but were bigger. They were far away yet, but coming towards them, running. "Daddy, look! They can carry Orion _and_ help Uncle Gaius!"  
  
"Huh? Hera, what are you—" Her father turned and saw Orion's family.   
  
" _Frack!_ "  
  
Hera giggled; that was even worse than "damnit"!  
  
"Hera, honey, I want you to get down and start running home, you got me?" her father ordered, kneeling so she could let go.  
  
"Why?" she asked, dropping to the ground, baffled. Orion's family was here; why couldn't her father carry her still?  
  
"Don't argue, Hera, just _go_!" he snapped, laying Orion down on the ground and drawing his rifle.  
  
Confused and getting a little scared now, Hera started to run, when she saw something shiny and sparking in the distance. It was approaching fast; she quickly realised it was a Centurion. She remembered her father saying that he hoped they got there soon; maybe now Hera wouldn't have to run home! She turned and started to run back to her father just in time to see him aim his rifle into the air and fire, the natives approaching with spears raised. Hera clamped her hands over her ears and shut her eyes, falling to her knees; for a moment, she was back in the place of metal walls, with guns firing all around her. Then she opened her eyes and saw the grassland again.  
  
She also saw a pair of Centurions coming over the next rise, beyond her father.  
  
 **Helo**  
  
Helo really didn't want to shoot these people, but he also wasn't going to just stand there and let the natives use him for target practice, either. One of them had tried it already, the spear luckily falling a few feet sort. Well, maybe it was a warning shot, just like the one Helo shot skyward from his rifle a second later, but they'd almost hit their own kid, Helo having set him down on the ground. And how, precisely, was he supposed to talk to people with whom he had no method of communication in common, anyway?  
  
He was still trying to figure that out when Orion sat up. The boy, seeing his tribe — well, Helo _hoped_ it was the kid's tribe — struggled to his feet. He stumbled forward a step, waving his arms in a way that Helo read as "stop", making a sound that seemed to express the same. Then the kid swayed, his knees buckling; Helo managed to catch him with his free arm. Reluctantly, Helo let go of the rifle, the safety back on; it was on a strap, so it didn't fall to the ground, but instead dangled at his side. He slipped his right arm under the boy's legs and lifted him just as the boy's eyes fluttered shut.  
  
Praying these people were smart enough not to spear him while he was holding one of their own, he approached them cautiously. Most still had their spears raised, but two, a man and a woman, lowered theirs and approached, hands outstretched; the parents, Helo assumed. Finally, worry for her son apparently overrode the woman's fear; she rushed forward and, crying, tried to take the boy.  
  
Thing was, if Helo let her have the kid back, the boy he was a goner; there was no way these people had anything that could cure a snake-bite! Were he in their position, he would ultimately want what was best for his child, could only pray that someone with the power to help her would do what was best for her, even if he fought against it. He needed to bring Orion to the clinic — but how to explain that?  
  
He pulled back a bit, and the woman pulled up short, as if stricken. Helo recognised the look in her eyes. Sharon had looked like that before: first when Hera was taken by Boomer, and again just an hour or so ago, when they realised she was missing from the Baltar homestead. Helo guessed that everyone had seen that same look on him, too, when Hera had been abducted by Boomer. Or maybe he'd looked more like the boy's father, who approached with his spear raised again, a murderous look in his eye.  
  
Helo slowly knelt, awkwardly propping the child up on his leg. He used his now-freed right arm to lift the boy's bandaged leg, showing it to them. He gently let go of the leg, patting his own chest, then pointed to the boy's injury. Spears lowered ever so slightly, the natives' wariness giving way just as slightly to confusion and curiosity. Helo undid the bandage, showing them the bite. The mother rushed forward again, and Helo quickly rose to his feet, taking the child up in his arms again, pulling away. The woman froze once more, a pleading look on her face.  
  
Helo wanted to scream in frustration. One wrong move, and these people would kill him — and the boy too, be it in the crossfire or by simple virtue of them not being able to heal him. _And_ Helo had lost Hera again! He could only hope she could find home, and that she wasn't found by more natives — or another lion!  
  
Well, he couldn't stand there all day. He tried gesturing with his head for the natives to follow, and turned. He got about two steps before he felt a sharp point in his back. It didn't penetrate his skin, but the threat was certainly there.  
  
Facing this new direction, though, Helo could see that the tide had just turned in his favour.  
  
He himself was standing more or less at the top of a slight hill. Coming up the left and right sides of the hill were Centurions. A moment later, he spotted yet another one coming from over the next hill, directly in front of him! The one coming from the left, the direction of the homestead, was closest; a Six (whom he had a sneaking suspicion was Caprica, which would make the Centurion Galatea) was on its shoulders — and Hera was in its arms! Helo's own arms — and legs, too — almost gave out in shaking relief. As the two Centurions from the right drew closer, Helo thought he saw a Two on one, and ... Lee Adama on the other? Yes, he was sure of it! He didn't think he had ever been happier to see his friend! And now the third Centurion drew closer, bearing an Eight — probably his Sharon. He wasn't sure that he was happy to see her, Hera, or even Caprica, though — mostly because of the bevy of spears behind him. One might be trained on him, but there were plenty to spare for new arrivals.  
  
And then the sharp point poking at his backside was gone. In place of its touch was a sound — a whirring of gears. Cautiously, he turned, and saw the natives cowering, prostrating themselves — with several Centurions surrounding them. The natives might not have much in the way of language, but they'd just found gods, apparently.  
  
"Where did _you_ guys come from?" Helo asked the newcomers.  
  
One of the Centurions pointed behind itself with its thumb. "We were out that way, looking for the missing little girl," the human on its shoulders revealed.  
  
Helo turned back to the other Centurions and hurried towards them, wanting as much distance between himself and the spear-bearers as possible. Once he was safely surrounded by the Cylons (and wasn't _that_ a strange thought), he lay Orion down and quickly rewound the bandages around the boy's wound. That done, he hurried over to Galatea — he was certain it was her, now that he could better see the distinctive paintjob of her shoulder-plates — and took Hera back, holding the child tight. Despite his earlier vow to never let her go though, he had to give her up seconds later — to her mother. That was fine by him; he had room in his arms for both of them.  
  
When he finally let them go, he noted Caprica standing by them. He gave _her_ a fierce hug, too. "You don't listen very well, do you?" he asked with a laugh.  
  
She hugged back just as hard. "I left Hermes with my 'job'. I couldn't let you go off to rescue my husband by yourself!"  
  
He jerked back. "Oh gods! Caprica, I'm so sorry — I didn't find Gaius yet!" he said, starting back down the trail he'd been following.  
  
Lee stepped in front of him. "It's all right, Helo, _we_ found him. Doc Cottle's taking him clinic as we speak."  
  
"The _clinic_ — is he all right?" Helo asked anxiously.  
  
Lee nodded. "Well, he _will_ be, anyway. He got into a fight with a _lion_ —"  
  
Helo felt like he'd been sucker-punched. He'd been worried earlier that Gaius might have run into the lion, but Hera had been so blasé about Gaius when he'd found her, focusing on Orion, that he'd forgotten about the man, figuring he must be all right!  
  
"—said something about distracting it so that Hera and that boy you found could get away," Lee continued. "He's in pretty bad shape, but it _could_ have been a lot worse — the Doc says he'll pull through. He just broke both sides of his collarbone and a few ribs, got a nasty bite, and has some bad scratches. He was a little dehydrated and got a bit of an infection, but they're got him on saline and antibiotics, and the fever is already gone."  
  
Helo felt sick; Gaius had gotten seriously hurt, could have been _killed_ — and Hera, too! All because he and Sharon hadn't locked the door to their room when they'd gone to bed the night before. Sharon grabbed his hand, holding it tight; by the look on her face, he could tell she was having the same thoughts.  
  
"When we'd found him, the lion was just lying on top of him, dead," Lee told him excitedly, sounding for all the world like he was in the locker-room, talking about some fellow pilot's daring fight with a Raider. "And I gotta say, I thought _Gaius_ was a goner too! But apparently when the lion bit him, Gaius stabbed him in the eye! Man, Gaius-frakking-Baltar, _lion-killer_ — can you _believe_ it?" Lee asked, shaking his head, grinning, clearly impressed.  
  
"Oh, I can believe it," Helo replied grimly. He wondered when people were going to stop underestimating his friend, the man who had apparently made a habit of saving children, even going so far as to take up arms when he was certainly no soldier ....   
  
Lee's eyes grew thoughtful — and a little sad. "Yeah, maybe you're right, it really _isn't_ so hard to believe. Not anymore ...."  
  
Shaken, Helo faced Caprica, to see how she was taking the news. If she really was pregnant, she could have lost her husband _and_ the father of her child. From what he'd heard, stress had basically killed her first baby; he prayed to whatever deity would listen that she wouldn't lose this one, too. "Caprica, I—"  
  
"It's okay, Helo," she told him with a wan smile; her eyes said she wasn't angry with him or Sharon or Hera at all, but was still worried sick for her husband. "He'll be all right. I heard everything on the way here, through Galatea and the network."  
  
Not believing that _she_ believed it, he reached out and squeezed her hand, giving her a reassuring smile. "Yes, he will — 'cause _we're_ all gonna be there with him, making sure he gets better," he vowed.  
  
"That's right!" Sharon agreed, giving Caprica a one-armed hug, Hera in her other arm. " _We're_ his family too!"  
  
"Come on," Helo told Caprica when Sharon released her, leading her back over to Galatea and helping her mount the Centurion. He turned to get Orion, and found him being checked over by the Two. "Let's have Galatea take him in. Sharon, you should take Hera to the clinic too, have her checked out. I gotta sort all this out with the natives ... _some_ how ...." He ran a hand through his hair, sighing.  
  
Sharon nodded, handing their daughter to Pandora before mounting the Centurion herself.  
  
Helo, meanwhile, picked up Orion and handed him to Galatea. He heard a sound of distress from behind him, and turned to find Orion's mother standing off a ways with the boy's father, tears streaming from her eyes.  
  
"Hey, Lee ..." Helo began.  
  
"Way ahead of you, Helo. It's fine by me, if it's okay with Starbuck," Lee replied, his eyes on the parents as well.  
  
"Starbuck?" Helo asked, baffled.  
  
"Oh, uh ... that's what I named the Centurion," he explained, blushing. "I-it's a long story ...."  
  
Helo felt a little knot form in his throat. He missed Kara terribly, but he was sure no one missed her more than Lee and the admiral. He nodded in understanding. "It's a good name. Be proud of it," he told the Centurion, who nodded in return.  
  
Just then, Helo heard the whir of Centurion gyros — a _lot_ of them. He turned to find a line of Centurions and skinjobs coming over the rise, Galatea and Pandora walking through them to head to the clinic.  
  
"Okay, never mind! Looks like we've got rides for everyone," Lee said cheerfully, climbing onto Starbuck's shoulders.  
  
Nodding, Helo allowed himself to be picked up by Starbuck, feeling a little ridiculous. He hoped the natives would get the gist as he waved beckoningly. The mother hesitantly approached the Centurion that had arrived alongside Starbuck with the Two on its back. The Centurion gently picked her up, then began to follow after Galatea. Helo watched as other Centurions picked up any natives that approached them — just a handful more. The rest of the natives held back, wide-eyed, watching their fellows being carried off.  
  
"This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to avoid," Lee called down to him. "Now they're going to think we're _gods_ or something."  
  
"I think they would have figured that no matter _what_ we did," Helo replied. "Soooo ... I guess we'll just have to teach them our language so we can tell 'em we're _not_ , right?"  
  
Lee laughed, and Starbuck set out for the clinic once more.  
  
 **Caprica**  
  
Galatea could go faster, Carpica suspected, but she supposed the Centurion wanted to be extra careful with the child in her arms. Not that Caprica could blame her, but it got to the point where Caprica was tempted to dismount, in the hopes that she could go reach the clinic sooner on her own. She couldn't bear being apart from her husband for another minute, under the circumstances. She needed to apologise for what a bitch she'd been, and to tell him she loved him. To think he could have died believing she didn't love him anymore! The thought made her ill — literally. She turned her head and dry heaved several times along the trip, the ground a blur as Galatea ran, making Caprica's nausea worse. Okay, so maybe going faster _wasn't_ a good idea.  
  
Looking over at Hera made her feel a little better, though, knowing that the child was safe — because of Gaius, no less. She smiled, pride for him warming her even as the sun was setting. Apparently the job God had given her and Gaius, to watch over the child, wasn't finished — it probably never would be.  
  
"Well, we said that your lives would be _less_ eventful, not _un_ eventful," a familiar voice said in her ear, sounding like Gaius and yet not. "In fact, there's _another_ rather important event that will be coming in, oh, about seven and a half more months ...."  
  
Caprica nearly fell off of Galatea's shoulders as everything about how she'd been feeling lately, the irritability and the nausea, suddenly made sense. Well, it wasn't the first time that day she'd been startled into losing her grip on Galatea. In fact, when Starbuck had sent the news about having found Gaius, with the preliminary report of his injuring, she _had_ fallen; thankfully, Galatea's reflexes had allowed the Centurion to catch her before she'd gotten very far. The Centurion, it seemed, hadn't been all that surprised to discover that Caprica had ignored her advice and lied about turning off her emotions; Caprica had simply pulled herself together before. She firmly believed that keeping a level head shouldn't require one to stop feeling — in fact, she suspected that the Cavils had been guilty of removing emotions like compassion from their programming altogether, as well as from the Fours and Fives. Thank God no one would be able to do that to her child, take away his or her ability to feel.  
  
Her child.  
  
No, _their_ child. She prayed Gaius was awake when she got to the clinic. Waiting for him to get all healed was going to be torturous enough; she didn't think she could bear waiting to give him the good news, too! She wanted to share the news with the Cylons, but she felt Gaius ought to be the first she told. Well, she supposed she would have to get tested first, but really, how long would that take? Less time than it was taking to _get_ to the clinic, that was for sure! She spent the trip thinking of potential names, then thinking of all the things she needed to either make or trade for, for the baby.  
  
She tried not to think how terrified she was that she might lose it, holding on to the fact that the angel had told her that there would be "an event" coming — she assumed that would be the child's birth, that it would be healthy.  
  
It took everything she had, when they reached the clinic, not to just leap off of Galatea and shove her way past the waiting crowd. Instead, she let the doctors and nurses get to the boy, then accompanied Sharon and Hera, coming in behind the staff as they brought the child indoors. She even waited until someone, another Eight, came to look at Hera. She couldn't wait a second longer, though, stopping a passing Six to ask where her husband was and hurrying off when she got the answer.  
  
She swooned when she saw him.  
  
It could have been worse — _much_ worse — but seeing all the bandages and knowing what was beneath, seeing his sun-burned skin and the tubes delivering saline, antibiotics, and oxygen — simply a precaution, because his injured ribs made it a little harder to breath, they told her — just drove home the fact that her last words she might have ever spoken to him were to say that she wanted him to _get out_.  
  
She didn't want to close her eyes, even to blink, didn't want to take her eyes off of him ever again, afraid God might snatch him away if she lost vigilance for even a moment. But her eyes soon clouded with tears — from not blinking or from worrying, she couldn't even tell — making the sight of him blurry. And then the world seemed to be literally swimming for a moment; the next think she knew, she was sitting on the bed next to his, an oxygen mask pressed against her face.  
  
"She was complaining of nausea yesterday and today," she heard Sharon telling Cottle.  
  
"Any irritability?" Cottle asked, taking the mask away.  
  
"Uh ... y-yeah, a bit," Sharon said, giving Caprica an apologetic look for ratting her out. Caprica didn't mind, though. "She said she and Gaius had a fight yesterday."  
  
"Well, _that's_ hardly anything remarkable; he could try the patience of a _Two_ ," Caprica heard Saul tease. She turned, still surprised to see him even after hearing his voice.  
  
"Hello, Caprica," Ellen said from her place beside him. "How are you holding up?"  
  
Things were still weird with her and the Tighs, considering, but they _were_ much better now that she was married. Maybe they would be better still after she bore Baltar's child .... "I'm, uh, on a bit of a see-saw at the moment, to be honest," she admitted, shifting uncomfortably under the scrutiny.  
  
Ellen put her hand on Caprica's shoulder, and suddenly the younger Cylon felt a little more at ease, uncertain why.  
  
"How is the boy?" Caprica asked; she assumed Hera was fine, since she was there in Sharon's arms and not occupying a bed.  
  
"He's a little dehydrated," Cottle said, "but the bite wasn't too bad. We've already administered the antivenin; the toxin should be cleared out in a day or two. The bite itself will take longer to heal, but I don't foresee any problems. The biggest issue is his tribe; we had to put him in a private room, and they're all crowded in there — well, the ones that came, anyway. Helo said there were more, but they stayed behind."  
  
"Yeah, they're a skittish bunch," Helo confirmed, coming up to stand beside Sharon, on the other side of Gaius. "I'm pretty sure two of them are the kid's parents; maybe the rest are aunts and uncles, or grandparents or something."  
  
"We're gonna need to come up with some way to communicate with them," Cottle grumbled. "They jump at every little thing — I think the only reason they haven't _attacked_ me is because Hygea and Asclepius are in there!"  
  
"Yeah, but how?" Helo asked. "They don't even seem to have a language — how can we translate?"  
  
"I can do it!" Hera declared.  
  
"Oh you can, can you?" Sharon asked, as bemused as the rest of the crowd present.  
  
"Yeah! I taught Orion some words, an' he taught me some hand signs, like the ones I seen deaf people use."   
  
Helo and Sharon exchanged astonished looks.  
  
"Sweetie, just how long have you been sneaking out of the house?" Helo asked, frowning.  
  
"I dunno," Hera replied meekly.  
  
"Well, we're gonna have to talk about that when we get home," Sharon informed her warningly. Hera ducked her head against her mother's neck. Sharon and Helo glanced at Gaius, then Caprica's way, a mirrored apology in their eyes.  
  
Wait, did they think this was _their_ fault? _Human_ parents usually slept — and most children, too. Caprica had a feeling most children didn't even _try_ to sneak out at night. And besides, the boy had to have snuck off too — unless this was like some tribal thing she had read about on Caprica, where kids go through rituals of adulthood at a young age, and the kid was on some kind of quest? Either way, if the Agathons were bad parents, then so were the native boy's, for sure!  
  
Suddenly Caprica was a whole lot less enthusiastic about having a kid of her own. Was she going to be able to handle this? She desperately wished Gaius were awake and well — admittedly not just because she simply wanted him better, but because, however selfish it might be of her, she didn't want to freak out _alone_ ....  
  
Doc Cottle interrupted her thoughts, but unfortunately it wasn't with an actual distraction from her pending status as a parent. "Can I see you for a moment, Caprica?" he asked.  
  
She nodded and followed him into an examining room. "Too many interruptions out there," he remarked, sitting in a chair and gesturing that she should sit in the bed. "Now, about your dizzy spell a moment ago—"  
  
"I'm pregnant," she blurted.  
  
Cottle's brows shot up. "You're sure about that?"  
  
"Well, no — I need you to run a test. But yeah, I'm ... I'm pretty sure!" She beamed, feeling a blush creep over her cheeks. As scared as she was, this was much better circumstances than her last pregnancy. And whatever she'd felt for Saul, Gaius was the love of her life. Apparently God agreed; hence the announcement from the angel who _looked_ like the man she loved. Hera couldn't save the future of Cylons and humans all on her own, Caprica realised then.  
  
Hera had just been the _first_ of the new breed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hera was, again, the most difficult to write for, but I think she turned out better in this chapter. In my experience, children come up with their own crazy, OCDish sorts of superstitions, like the "step on a crack, break your mother's back" thing; I hope her convoluted fear and inability to grasp the severity of the situation, seeing it all as some weird game at the beginning of her section, made sense. Hell, even aside from that, this chapter on the whole, with the explanation of the directions, was hard to write — I hope you were able to picture it all clearly enough in Helo's section, too. XD I'm glad to have finally gotten to Caprica's view, though!


	5. Up and At 'Em

**Gaius**  
  
At first, there was nothing.  
  
Then came a low buzz, like cicadas but oddly pleasant. As time went on, the sound grew in volume and clarity, the buzzing seeming on the verge of resolving into words.  
  
After sound came sensation — faint, like he was receiving the firings of the nerves of someone far away, rather than his own. And they conflicted: warm yet cold. Stifling yet drafty. Sharp pinpricks that came and went, washed away by waves of a more subtle, aching pain.  
  
Next came smells. Clean, sterile — antiseptic. Dirt. Sour sweat. Sweet flowers. Copper. No, _blood_.  
  
Then came light, red light, but that was all he could see. Why couldn't he see anything else?  
  
Oh. His eyes were closed.  
  
He opened them.  
  
Well, he _tried_ to — his eyes apparently didn't get the message.  
  
He tried to ask what was going on. He was sure he opened his mouth, said words, but he didn't hear any of it. Well, he'd thought he'd opened his eyes, too, but that obviously hadn't worked either.  
  
Maybe he'd broken his neck?  
  
No, he would still be able to open his eyes, right? And he wouldn't be able to _feel_ anything, then — he might not feel _much_ , but he was definitely feeling _some_ thing.  
  
"Hey, Starbuck, could you bring me that pitcher of water?" asked a familiar voice.  
  
 _Starbuck? I'm not Starbuck ...._  
  
Memories started coming suddenly — Lee Adama and his Centurion. And before that, a lion trying to snack on him. Oh God, he was dying, wasn't he? He was dying and he'd never see Caprica again, and she probably thought he didn't love her, and—  
  
"Tell Caprica I love her!" he croaked.  
  
There, he heard himself that time. It wasn't the same as telling her in person, but at least if he died now, Caprica wouldn't be left wondering.  
  
"I love you too, Gaius," came a sniffling laugh.  
  
Wait a minute. Was that really—  
  
The world erupted in bright, white pain as all the sensation returned to him at once, at full volume. He cried out against it, squeezing his eyes shut, blocking out the light and wishing he could do the same with the agony in his shoulders, his ribs, his legs.  
  
"What's wrong with him, what's happening?" he heard Caprica ask, panicked. He wanted to comfort her, but his body was locked in its misery, his teeth clenched tight.  
  
"Morphine probably wore off again," he heard a gruff voice reply — Cottle?  
  
His pain slowly began to ease, until he was finally able to open his eyes again, after a bit of effort. It was worth it; Caprica stood over him, beaming, a tear sliding down her cheek.  
  
"There's the smile I've missed," he told her weakly, barely able to hear himself. He wanted to reach out, touch her cheek, wipe the tear away, but found his arm pinned under one of her hands, her fingers digging into his skin. He concentrated on that small, beautiful pain and felt his other aches fade.  
  
She reached with her free hand, touching his face the way he wanted to touch hers. "Gaius, I'm so sorry! I just want you to know, I didn't mean any of it! I was—"  
  
"Just being a hormonal pregnant woman. I know," he told her, smiling fondly. Well, at least he hoped it was fondly — it was probably either dopey or twisted with pain, because the pain wasn't totally gone, just—why was she looking at him like that?  
  
"H-how did you _know_ that?" Caprica asked. He couldn't tell if she was amazed or disappointed, but neither expression made any sense to him, until he realised that she wasn't confused or disappointed about being _pregnant_ , just that he _knew_ she was.  
  
"Wait a minute, here — you didn't tell Gaius?" Lee asked, definitely confused. "But he told _me_ — how did he know, then?"  
  
Looking over at him, Gaius discovered that he was surrounded by friends, human, Centurion, and skinjob alike. A pleasure wholly different from — and much more effective than — the morphine washed over him. Especially when he saw that little Hera was safe in her father's arms.  
  
And to think, Gaius would be holding his _own_ precious child someday ....  
  
"The _other_ Caprica told me," he explained, looking pointedly at his wife. "It was how I found the strength to kill that lion — she told me I had to live for our son."   
  
"Son? Really?" she asked, beaming. "It was the other _you_ who told _me_ , too," she added.  
  
"Other _Baltar_?" Cottle asked, looking back and forth at each of them. "Another _Six_ I can see — I can see one right _now_ ," he added, gesturing towards a Six that was passing by. "But there's only one of _him!_ "  
  
"Thank Gods for that!" Gaius saw Saul Tigh approach the bed and wink at him with his remaining good eye. "Soooo! A lion, huh? Show-off," the man remarked, grinning.  
  
"Are you _smiling?_ At _me?_ Who are you and what have you done with the real Saul Tigh?" Gaius asked, teasing back. Like many others, Tigh had warmed towards Gaius a bit since the final battle, particularly after having witnessed Gaius stand up to Cavil in defense of Hera. It probably helped that Ellen was a part of the Quorum, too.  
  
Tigh burst out laughing. "Ah, I wish Bill were around to see how far you've come with that sense of humour, Doc!"  
  
"Oh! That's right, in all the excitement, I forgot to tell everyone — I found him! I found Dad!" Lee revealed with a happy laugh.  
  
"That's fan _tas_ tic!" Gaius said, joining in on the congratulations everyone offered the younger Adama. And he meant it, too. As insufferable as his own father had been at times, Gaius missed him; he was happy for Lee that he'd gotten his own father back. And happy for the settlement as well; Gaius imagined it would offer the populace some comfort to know that one of their beloved heroes was still reachable.  
  
In fact ....  
  
"Lee, what would you say to the idea of bringing a Centurion out to Adama," Gaius asked. His words were a little halting, but he was getting better with every passing second. "That way we could contact him if necessary, and help him when he needs it ...."  
  
"I don't know, Doc — I like the idea, but ... I just can't see _him_ going for it," Lee hedged.  
  
"Well, you tell the old man that if he won't allow us even that little bit of connection," Tigh began, "so that we can still have an occasional chess match, then I'll just send a lot _more_ Centurions out there. There won't be a place in this whole wide world he can hide!"  
  
Gaius wasn't entirely sure the man was kidding. Still, if anyone could talk the Admiral into anything, it was his XO — and his son.  
  
"All right. I'll give it a shot," Lee promised, shaking the man's hand. "You ask around and see who wants the job of Admiral-sitting."  
  
"Will do. I think Hermes would be up for it," Tigh replied, then turned to Gaius. "You take care of yourself — so you can take care of _her_ ," the man added, gesturing to Caprica.  
  
The elder Cylon looked Gaius in the eye with his one good remaining orb, and Gaius, for one fleeting moment, felt a connection he never thought he would with the man, even with their differences laid aside. Tigh still cared for Caprica, Gaius could tell, and it probably hurt the man a little to see her pregnant again after what happened to their own child — in large part because Tigh was put in the impossible position of having his original love come back from the dead. Gaius should probably have felt some jealousy — okay, maybe he _did_ , really — but Caprica was with _him_ now, and that was all that mattered. He could feel pity for what Tigh had lost, as well as be happy that the man had found his Ellen again. And Gaius had the distinct feeling that the look the man was giving him now was both a warning for Gaius to do as ordered, to take Care of Carpica, as well as a blessing, an acknowledgement that Gaius was worthy to be Caprica's husband and the father of her child.  
  
If that was what the man was indeed saying, Gaius could only hope he was right.  
  
Gaius nodded to Tigh. "There's absolutely nothing higher on my to-do list," he assured him. The Cylon nodded back, making a gruff sound of approval and patting Gaius on the leg in farewell.  
  
"I should go check on my other patient," Cottle said then.  
  
"'Other patient'?" Gaius asked, alarmed. Had someone else been hurt?  
  
"The native boy that Hera was playing with - we call him Orion," Sharon explained. "He got bitten by a puff adder."  
  
Ah, Gaius remembered now — the boy that had been in the tree with Hera. "Will he be all right?" he asked worriedly. _God, don't let me have saved him from the lion for nothing!_  
  
"He'll be _fine_ ," Cottle assured him. "Should be right as rain by the end of the week. Caprica, I'd like you to stay here for observation, under the circumstances — you can stay in the bed next to Baltar's. _You_ three, though," he added, addressing Helo, Sharon, and Hera, "should probably go soon, eh? Let the man get some rest." Helo and Sharon nodded contritely. "I'll be back later, but call if you need anything," Cottle told Gaius, then walked away.  
  
"Hey, before we go, I ... well, I just want to say thank you," Helo said awkwardly. "For saving Hera."  
  
"And I'm sure Orion's parents would be thanking you too, if they could speak," Caprica added, stroking his cheek as she smiled lovingly. "I'm so proud of you, Gaius."  
  
He dearly wished he could move right now, suddenly feeling a desperate need to kiss her the way he had the _first_ time she had said that to him, during the final battle. Instead, all he could do was blush self-consciously. "Helo would have done the same."   
  
"Oh, he _did_ , sort of!" Caprica said, turning then to Helo. "I mean, he _was_ ready to hunt that lion himself. Instead, he ended up facing down a tribe of angry natives with spears!"  
  
Gaius blinked. "Okay, I missed a _lot_ while I was out, apparently."  
  
Helo, clearly embarrassed, gave a quick rundown of his day, how he had gone tracking the lion in the hopes of finding Hera and Gaius, and ended up finding the injured Orion and the boy's wary tribe. "They were probably only hostile because I had Orion, though. Besides, _having_ him kept them from trying too hard to stab me, at least until just before everyone else arrived. And none of us would have even been _in_ that mess if ..." He looked at his daughter, falling silent. Gaius noted how guilty the man looked, and Sharon, too.  
  
"Hera snuck out while we were asleep," Sharon explained to Gaius.  
  
 _Oh, so_ that's _how it is ...._ "Well, I was out there in the first place because I was tracking one of our wayward cows, so I probably would have run across the lion and ended up like this anyway. Or it would have run across me. Oh!" He just remembered! " _Bessie!_ Has anyone seen her?"  
  
"Hermes has, actually," Carpica replied with a smile. "She probably got scared by all of the Centurions stomping around today."  
  
"Poor thing!" Gaius said, laughing a little. That wasn't such a good idea. "Ow." He sighed. "Well, still, if you're going to play the blame game, you can shovel some _Bessie's_ way. Better yet, _I_ vote we blame the _lion!_ Then again, I guess we can't blame it for being hungry, either," he joked, hoping to dispel the Agathon's worries. They only gave half-hearted smiles.  
  
Apparently sensing what he was trying to do, Caprica chimed in, coyly, "I know firsthand how yummy you are! How could he resist?"  
  
"Please, there's a child present," Sharon teased, covering Hera's ears.  
  
They laughed some more, while Gaius tried very had not to. When it died down, he said, "While we're giving thanks, thank _you_ , Lee, for finding me," Gaius said.  
  
"Yes!" Caprica agreed wholeheartedly. "Thank you. You and Starbuck both."  
  
"Starbuck?" Gaius asked, perplexed. Then again, he seemed to have heard the name several times recently and wasn't sure why ....  
  
The Centurion standing behind Lee waved, and everything clicked into place in his head.  
  
"Oh! You decided on a name, then?" Gauis asked, smiling and waving back weakly, trying not to stir his shoulders too much. "Hello, and thank you as well, Starbuck!"  
  
The Centurion nodded.  
  
"Yeah, and just like the original, she's saved my ass out there more times than I can count," Lee admitted.  
  
"You can count?" Sharon asked with a grin.  
  
Lee stuck his tongue out at her.  
  
Gaius laughed and immediately aborted it with another "Ow!"  
  
"Okay, no more comedy around the patient," Cottle said, returning. "I thought I told you people to give this poor guy some rest! Helo, I could use a hand with that Orion kid, if you're okay with bringing Hera in there. He's been saying her name over and over."  
  
The humans and skinjobs within earshot all raised their brows in surprise, save for Hera. Even the Centurions somehow managed to look surprised, despite the lack of eyebrows.  
  
"I've been teaching Orion what things are called," Hera announced.  
  
From the look the Agathons exchanged, Gaius guessed the irony that their usually quiet daughter was teaching a native to talk wasn't lost on them.  
  
"Yeah, I guess it's okay," Helo replied. "See ya later, Gaius," he said, Sharon waving goodbye.  
  
"Yeah, I better go too, before Doc Cottle has me bounced," Lee said. "Hey, uh ... you guys mind if I crash at your place while I figure out what to do next?"  
  
The Baltars assured him they would be happy for him to, and Lee promised to look after things while they were away. He left, Starbuck and Galatea trailing after him.   
  
Suddenly the room was a lot more open, less claustrophobic — and much, much colder.  
  
Gaius didn't have long to miss his company, though, sleep claiming him momentarily. He slept most of his stay in the clinic, but every time he opened his eyes, there was always someone there. Well, Caprica was always there, of course, but there was always at least one _other_ person as well, such as Lee or Saul, and often the Agathons as a unit. Almost never the Centurions, though, as they apparently considered finishing their work on the Agathon homestead to be more important. He appreciated the Centurions pragmatism but was surprised to find he missed them, particularly Galatea, her presence oddly comforting on the rare occasion when she _did_ come by.  
  
Gaius also found it oddly soothing to fall asleep — as he often did, thanks to the pain meds — to the hum of his friend's voices. Sometimes they told him stories about life outside the clinic walls. Often, if two or more of the military veterans were around, they reminisced about impressive manouevres that they'd either done or witnessed, Kara Thrace being the most common subject. And sometimes it was just Caprica and Sharon gossiping — something that would have driven him nuts under other circumstances but somehow pleased him now, even though he was literally a captive audience. Maybe because he realised that it meant the two women had lives amongst, connections with, the humans. It was all so ... _peaceful_. Normal. Maybe life would never be the same as it had been on Caprica, but it looked like they could still be as _happy_ — maybe more so, without mortal enemies to contend with.  
  
Well, except maybe half-starved lions.  
  
Then again, if the lions knew what was good for them, they would stay away. On the day Gaius was released from the clinic, the natives surprised him with a rug made from the lion's skin. Helo oh-so-helpfully suggested it be placed in the hall of the Quorum, to remind all who entered of what Gaius had done. Caprica pointed out later that this allowed them to honour the gift of the tribe rather than insult them, but also fixed it so that they didn't have to have the thing around the _house_.  
  
Wonderful. The tribesmen didn't even have a complex language, but they could _still_ give horrifically tacky presents and get offended if you didn't want them ....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was somewhat inspired by/based on personal experience with morphine. The interesting thing about morphine is, when it wears off, it's like flipping a switch. Well, that's how it was for me, anyway. Not that they ever gave me enough to eliminate the pain after my surgery, or to make me at all loopy/stoned, though. They gave me a button and told me to press it whenever it hurt, but the dispenser would only give so much morphine within a certain amount of time. I was pressing that thing like crazy, and all I ever got was down from blinding, "OMGs, I'm being turned inside-out and fed through a meat-grinder!!" pain to "Please take the sword out of my gut ..." pain. Still, when the morphine did wear off because I got wrapped up in a conversation or being checked by the nurses and hadn't been pressing the button quite so steadily, it was a sudden, nasty surprise when the morphine in my system was used up. Then all I could think was "OMGs BUTTON!! BUTTON NOW!!" XD
> 
> Okay, there's just a little bit more ....


	6. Here's Where the Story Ends

"And then what happened?" Adam asked Hera, jarring Gaius out of his memories. From the startled expressions on his friends' faces, it seemed they, too, had been summarily snagged out of their own journeys down the river of Mnemosyne.  
  
Hera shrugged. "Your daddy got better, and Orion got better, and our people and Orion's became friends."  
  
"And _then_ what happened?" Adam persisted.  
  
"And then you were born, and then Sam, and then your sister was born, and here you are today, asking what happens next," came an amused voice from behind them.  
  
"Ooriiiiooon!" Adam screeched, glomping onto the boy's — no, _young man_ 's leg. Derrick was far more laid back about it, but Gaius could tell that the younger teen was just as pleased to see his idol. Orion was about eighteen now, and likely to be made chieftain of his tribe soon — provided his recent quest was a success.  
  
"Well?" Helo asked the man, after a hearty round of hugs and greetings.   
  
Wordlessly, Orion opened a large sack he had slung around his shoulder. Helo peeked inside and smirked. "Yup. He got it."  
  
"You know, you could have just taken mine," Gaius pointed out.  
  
"I think someone would have noticed when next they visited the Quorum and saw the rug missing," Orion pointed out. "Besides, you could argue that I cheated in getting this one anyway: he was pretty old and asleep when I found him. I woke him up first," he added quickly at the disapproving look Baltar gave him. "But really, there wasn't much fight left in him; I doubt he would have lived another day. I probably put him out of his misery."  
  
"You're just saying that to make me feel better because there's not a scratch on you!" Gaius scoffed.  
  
"Yeah, well, Sirius probably intimidated him ...." Orion suggested, pointing with his thumb to the Centurion behind him.  
  
While Gaius felt bad for the lion, Orion's success was still a relief. Even if it could be considered cheating, things would be easiest for everyone if Orion was in charge of his tribe, making sure the peaceful relations between his people and the settlement was maintained. (Besides, as chief, Orion might sway the younger members of the tribe to put an end to that tradition when their time came!) Orion was the won who had most ably taken to what the aliens had to teach, the one who had best come to understand the language and the concepts. His people, in turn, had great knowledge of the world they lived in, the dangers and healing benefits — and contact with other tribes, who in turn had contact with other tribes, and so on. Orion was the starting point for their people to truly become integrated with their new Earth.  
  
Gaius wondered how things would have worked out between their people and his if Hera hadn't snuck out that night. They had already been there months without interacting with the natives in any meaningful way. As far as he was concerned, that introduction was worth a few scars. Hell, Hera alone was worth it. He hoped that someday Helo, Sharon, and Hera would stop seeing the mistakes they'd each made that day and start seeing the benefits gained from it.  
  
But then, Gaius would probably always feel the weight of the billions who had died on Caprica, despite the daily reminder of the peace gained with the Cylons and their new start here, so who was he to talk?  
  
Sitting at the table with his family — including those not related by blood or marriage — Gaius watched the sun set on the homestead, thinking about how lucky he was. He had a warm and loving home, his barn was full of healthy and happy animals, and his fields were prosperous, maintained with the help of several dozens of friends, metal and flesh alike. He mused lazily about the Quorum meeting he would be attending soon, the blessing he would be giving his constituent's new child, and the new crops he had been developing in his lab in his spare time, ones that could better tolerate the climate they lived in. He thought of how Tigh would be sorry to have missed this gathering, how maybe when Kara was older they ought to go with Lee to visit his father and Galen, and how very stuck he was with the new medication he'd been trying to develop for Cottle's clinic. Life was so full now, thoughts of the life he had _lost_ were as far away as the planet they'd been lost on. It was interesting to note though, as he held Caprica and his children in his arms, with his dearest friends at his side, that he once would have abhorred this simple life, yet he had never been lonelier or unhappier than when he had been living in the lap of luxury on Caprica.  
  
"What are you thinking about?" Caprica whispered later that evening, Kara and Adam having fallen asleep in their beds, all the other rooms taken by their guests.  
  
"I was worrying about Lee, being alone so much. Hardly seems fitting, a man who's lived such a good life ...." The man was far more deserving of prosperity than Gaius ever was. And Gaius still felt indebted to the man for finding him when he was trapped under the lion, just like how the Agathons felt indebted to Gaius ....  
  
"I wouldn't worry about him. He's happy, Gaius; that's all that matters. He stays with us when he needs company, or with the Agathons, or his father."  
  
"Yes, well, I worry about _him_ , too — the admiral, I mean. He almost never comes here ...."  
  
"He would come more often, if that's what he wanted, just like Lee does. Besides, Lee has Starbuck and Bill has Hermes. They chose their lives; no one forced them, into it."  
  
"Yeah, I suppose. But it's not the same as _this_ ," Gaius replied, waving a hand at the both of them.  
  
"Maybe not, but they've loved and lost, and I guess don't want another. I can respect that," she said quietly. "So they'll enjoy _other_ things in life, until it's time for them to pass over and see the ones they've lost again. Meanwhile, they've got us — it's not the same, but it doesn't _need_ to be," she mused.  
  
"I guess you're right," Gaius agreed, feeling a little better.  
  
"I see you've almost finished hoeing that row," Caprica noted, changing the subject.  
  
Gaius laughed softly. "We _would_ have, if Galatea had had her way, but I talked her out of it."  
  
Caprica grinned. "Standing up to a Centurion? That takes guts! Have I told you today how proud I am of you?" she asked, tracing his collarbone, then kissing the scars on his shoulder.  
  
He grinned back. "I don't think so. Have I told you how much I _love_ you?"  
  
She shook her head no, a sly look in her eye.  
  
He _showed_ her instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Greek mythos, the river of Mnemosyne is the river of memory.
> 
> Orion was a great (mortal) hunter who was given a place in the heavens when he died (his is my fave constellation). There's a semi-famous drawing of him that features him holding up the body of a lion he's just killed. Sirius was his dog.
> 
> And now, we've reached the "thought process" part of the notes. After watching the series finale, "Daybreak, Part 2", my muse got very noisy, and would not shut up until I finished this. XD I admit to not really having a plan with this one — well, even less than usual, anyway. In fact, it was originally just going to be a little ficlet! I basically just knew that:
> 
> ~ Seeing Baltar and Caprica watching the Agathons and asking the Angels about what would happen to Hera, they would never be able to stay away from the girl. It helped that it looked like they were going to settle near each other, and that the Agathons talked about hunting while Baltar talked about farming — it seemed like great potential for a symbiotic relationship.  
> ~ The fact that Caprica got pregnant once, and Cylon pregnancies seem tied to love, suggests to me that she should be able to have a child with Baltar just as Sharon did with Helo, and that she should be able to carry this one to term because it was the reappearance of Ellen, cutting into the love Tigh had come to feel for her, that basically killed her other child. And I figured if each couple could have one child, why not another? Mitochondrial Eve concept not withstanding, the more genetic material you have, the better.  
> ~ My hurt/comfort fetish meant I would need to seriously injure my fave character somehow, and give a former enemy a reason to feel bad for him and come to see him in a different light. Lee was the obvious choice — although Helo was a good possibility.  
> ~ Hera has an awful habit of wandering off, so it seemed to me that she would need rescuing again at some point. A perfect excuse for that hurt/comfort. :evilgrin:  
> ~ I wanted to expand upon the respect Lee started to show Baltar/explore their relationship.  
> ~ I wanted to play with the Centurions.  
> ~ I figured they had to try interacting with the native sooner or later.  
> ~ And of course, most importantly, I wanted to ruminate on Baltar's beliefs, his motivations, and the evolution of his character.  
> ~ I did not decide at the beginning that Kara would be in the story, although when I started writing I decided pretty quickly that Lee would call his Centurion Starbuck. When I was talking with my friend Dennis about the finale, he said he figured Kara would always kind of watch over Lee from then on, that she wasn't completely gone, and that's how I got the idea to have her be like a Head!Kara for Lee. The idea of him being completely alone out there was just too sad, but I get the sense that, like his dad, the love of his life is gone and he's not interested in finding another. (If you want to believe Adama renamed Hermes Roslin and sees her the way Lee sees Starbuck, be my guest. :))
> 
> Everything else just sort of evolved as I went — well, a little more than usual, I mean. There were more surprises on my end, more instances where I realised something just didn't work and had to be thrown out — did a lot more rewrites than usual. Hmm, I should have saved some of the stuff I got rid of, for my own records — it's not that I didn't like them, after all, just that they didn't work with the rest, like putting a puzzle together and discovering some of the pieces don't belong at all. I must have rewritten the Galatea section five times, with some aspects being *very* different, the main one being that I originally had them learn about Baltar then, which didn't actually work in the continuity. I also had instances where I ended up moving whole sections, like when you think you've put a puzzle piece in the right spot and realise it's totally wrong later. Again, not at all unusual for that to happen when I'm writing; it just happened more here than usual. Like the third chapter was originally the second, and vice versa! XD No wonder it took about 2 & 1/2 weeks to write and ended up being 54 pages! Ficlet indeed! XD
> 
> But it was fun, going rather stream-of-consciousness like that, watching it unfold. I hope it wasn't too boring for those of you who gave it a shot. Then again, the fact that you made it this far suggests you liked it well enough (or that you just love *me* that much! :love:). Thanks for reading! Comments/faves are not necessary, but they do feed my muse, so we are grateful for them. :)
> 
> Will there be a sequel? None planned, but I can certainly see reasons to play in this universe again, so we'll see.

**Author's Note:**

> On the off chance that you missed the episodes or have forgotten the details ...
> 
> Galatea is meant to be the Centurion that Gaius spoke to on the baseship, just before getting a near-fatal wound in an explosion, in the episode "The Hub".
> 
> Jeanne and Derrick are the mother and the son with a serious illness from the episode "He That Believeth in Me."
> 
> The miracle of Kara Thrace, aka Starbuck, is that they found her dead remains on the Cylon Earth, yet she was alive and well at the time -- resurrected by "God" (the details are unknown) to lead the humans and Cylons to a new Earth (which she did).
> 
> I know Roslin's first name is Laura, but I thought Kara Roslin sounded pretty. :) And given all the forgiveness going around at the end of the series, and they got along well enough to work together in "No Exit", that between her saving his life in "The Hub" and the bond she shared with Caprica, the Baltars' naming their daughter for her isn't far-fetched.
> 
> As for the Baltar's having kids, Caprica almost had a child once already -- I figure a hybrid would be easier to carry, and that, as the Cylons believed when they paired up Sharon and Helo, love makes a difference. Yes, the boy being named Adam is a little joke based on the fact that Hera is called "Mitochondrial Eve".
> 
> There's not a lot of detail about the mechanics of Centurions and skinjobs out there on the net, so for the purposed of this story, we'll assume that the Centurions don't need some sort of tower to maintain their network -- or if they do, that they're able to easily make them. Also assume that their communications ability is far-reaching (it would have to be, if they were communicating with a ship in orbit from all around a planet) and that they can recharge with solar power or some other easily-renewed resource.
> 
> The bulk of my research for this fic was done at [Battlestar Wiki](http://en.battlestarwiki.org/) and [IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407362/episodes#season-4) and by simply watching episodes. :) You may want to also check out [a painting I did of Baltar](http://wolfenmoondaughter.deviantart.com/art/BSG-Dr-Gaius-Baltar-113432508) (and the accompanying story of how I met James Callis).
> 
> ###########  
> If you've enjoyed my writing, I invite you to explore my original fantasy storyverse, [Gaiankind](http://gaiankind.com)! You can even find Gaiankind stories for free [here](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Gaiankind) on AO3!


End file.
